RUSTON, La. ? The University of Idaho women's basketball team let an 11-point lead slip away and was out-muscled in a 70-60 loss at Louisiana Tech on Friday.

“La Tech came out and played an extremely physical game with us and we didn't handle that very well,” Idaho head coach Jon Newlee said. “We had no individual offensive rebounds at halftime tonight and it just didn't seem like we were going in there after the ball.

“That disappoints me, because I felt like we had achieved a sort of toughness about our team and it just didn't show up tonight.”

With the loss, Idaho slips to 8-11 overall and 5-3 in the WAC, while La Tech moves to 12-10 overall and 5-3 in the WAC.

The Vandal women shot the ball fairly well on the night, as they hit 22 of 58 shots for a .379 percentage from the floor, but were just 7-of-9 from the free throw line, where they had been averaging more than 13 points per game. Louisiana Tech, on the other hand, went to the line 30 times and hit 20 of their free shots.

Sophomore Yinka Olorunnife and junior Derisa Taleni went a combined 13-of-25 from the floor and scored 18 points each to lead Idaho, while sophomore Rachele Kloke dropped in 11 off the bench and freshman Shaena Kuehu added 10.

Idaho raced out to a quick lead to start the game and used a balanced attack to build a quick 20-9 lead at the 12:20 mark of the first half, but nine made free throws helped the Lady Techsters out-pace the Vandals for the rest of the half by a 26-10 margin. By halftime, La Tech had already attempted 17 free throws, while Idaho had taken just two.

“We got out to a great lead and I thought we really were attacking and playing well, but then from that point it seemed like we let down defensively and lost our intensity,” Newlee said.

After getting down by as many as 11 points in the second half, Idaho battled back on multiple occasions to cut the lead down to one or two possessions, but couldn't quite get over the hump.

“I've been to this place a number of times and it's a very hard place to win in and we were right there,” Newlee said. “If we had gotten a couple breaks, we could have won tonight.

“The big positive I'll take out of this is that we never quit. We had a lot of stuff working against us tonight and we never let up.”

The Lady Techsters won the battle in the paint, as they scored 34 to Idaho's 20, while Idaho held a 19-13 advantage in points off turnovers and an 11-to-9 advantage in bench points. The Techsters also added 16 second-chance points, compared to 12 for Idaho.

Newlee said that the loss was disappointing, but the most important thing now is to put the loss behind them and to put their full focus on Sunday's game at New Mexico State.

“We've got to forget about this one,” Newlee said. “We have got to get the mindset that we're going in and we're going to war on Sunday, because this New Mexico State team is Jekyll and Hyde. They're not the same team at home as they are on the road.

“We've got to bring our ?A' game on Sunday and see what happens.”