March 1, 2008
FT. COLLINS, Colo. - The San Diego State women's basketball team shot 49 percent from the field and had just 12 turnovers to sweep the season series against Colorado State with a 76-56 win Saturday at Moby Arena. With the victory, the Aztecs won in Fort Collins for the first time in eight years and clinched at least a .500 overall record for the first time since the 1996-97 season, improving to 15-12. SDSU also garnered its sixth conference victory of the year (6-9), its most ever in the nine years of Mountain West Conference play. The Rams, meanwhile, fell to 2-25 overall and 0-14 in league action.
The Aztecs were led by the sophomore backcourt duo of Quenese Davis (Sacramento, Calif.) and Jené Morris (San Francisco, Calif.), who both finished with 19 points and seven steals. Davis scored 17 of her 19 points in the first half, while also tallying five assists to move into 10th place in the Aztec career record book with 279. Freshman center Paris Johnson (San Diego, Calif.) was the third SDSU player in double-figures with 10 points, followed closely behind by freshman Coco Davis (Sacramento, Calif.), who had a career-high nine points and recorded one of the team's six three-pointers on the afternoon.
After San Diego State got the first basket of the game, Colorado State scored the next four points to take the 4-2 lead, which would turn out to be the host's only advantage of the night. The Aztecs responded to the deficit with a 7-0 run and after a Ram free-throw, continued that effort with seven more unanswered points to go up by 11 at 16-5. CSU got its first field goal in over five minutes to close to within nine points, but the Rams could not stop the offensive onslaught as the Aztecs outscored them 17-3 in the final five minutes to head into the locker room up by 23 points at 44-21.
SDSU gained its largest lead of the afternoon at 26 points at 50-24 at the 17:09 mark, but the Rams charged back to close to within just 17 on two occasions, with the last one coming at 58-41. A 6-0 Aztec run, including four free-throws by Johnson in a span of a minute and a half, pushed the advantage back to 23 points, and the San Diego State advantage never got below 20 points again, including at the final buzzer at 76-56.
The Aztecs had a season-low for a conference game with 12 turnovers, including only two in the first half. SDSU also forced 29 Colorado State turnovers, picking up 16 steals, to offset the Rams' 43-27 advantage on the glass.
CSU senior Sara Hunter had a team-best 13 points, while Amaka Uzomah had a game-high 14 rebounds.
San Diego State heads home for Senior Day next Saturday when the Aztecs round out the regular season against Air Force beginning at 2 p.m. PT at Cox Arena. Forwards Shanna Demus and Shannon Clay and guards Kate Eveland and Tamika Lipford will all be honored in a special pre-game ceremony.