Jan. 14, 2009
SAN DIEGO - The San Diego State women's basketball team scored a season-low 49 points, but managed to hold on to stay perfect this season at home, defeating visiting Wyoming, 49-42, Wednesday at Cox Arena. With the victory, the Aztecs claimed back-to-back wins over the Cowgirls for the first time since 1997 and improved to 11-4 overall and 2-1 in conference action. Wyoming, meanwhile, fell to 8-7 on the year and 0-2 in MWC play.
"We have really struggled inside in back-to-back games," Aztec head coach Beth Burns said. "We didn't get much (offensive production) up at Utah and again today, especially against [Wyoming's] the zone defense. I liked that we kept attacking and kept shooting. That's why we say, `defense wins,' because we kept Wyoming to only 14 points at halftime and we felt like we would break out of (the shooting slump)."
Sophomore center Paris Johnson (San Diego, Calif.) led the Aztecs in scoring with 14 points despite playing just 19 minutes due to foul trouble. Senior Jennifer Layton-Bailes (Sacramento, Calif.) tallied 11 points and five offensive rebounds and sophomore Coco Davis (Sacramento, Calif.) had a career-high nine assists. Her sister, Quenese Davis (Sacramento, Calif.), notched a season-best eight rebounds, while also chipping in eight points and five assists.
Wyoming started the game with a pair of two-point leads, but San Diego State pulled ahead with six straight points to go up 8-4 at the 13:03 mark. The Cowgirls cut their slim deficit down to one on two occasions over the next four minutes before an 11-0 Aztec run put the hosts up by 12 at 23-11. The Wyoming offense finally put points on the board after an 8:09 drought on a free throw by Megan McGuffey and went into the locker room down by 11, 25-14.
San Diego State saw its lead get cut to five points at the 14:02 mark of the second half, but then began to pull away, as Layton-Bailes scored a lay-up and converted a three-point play to return the advantage to double-figures at 34-24. The Cowgirls rallied to cut their deficit to single-digits with just over a minute left with a 6-0 run, but Quenese Davis closed out the game by hitting both of her free throws to preserve the 49-42 win.
San Diego State shot just 32.3 percent from the field and 15.4 percent from beyond the arc, but attempted 22 more shots than the Cowgirls, owning a 20-7 advantage on the offensive glass. The Aztecs also forced 23 Wyoming turnovers and the Cowgirls' 42 points were the second-fewest in the 36 all-time meetings between the two foes.
Wyoming had two players score in double-figures in Kristen Scheffler (12 points) and Elisabeth Dissen (10 pts.).
SDSU will have a bye in its conference schedule on Saturday before traveling to Albuquerque, N.M. for a 7 p.m. MT game at No. 25 New Mexico at The Pit. Chris Ello will have the live audio call of the game on SDSU's official website, www.goaztecs.com.