Jan. 26, 2011
SAN DIEGO - The San Diego State women's basketball team was limited to two points in the final five minutes of the first half, as visiting Brigham Young rallied from an early 10-point deficit to hand the Aztecs a 65-55 loss Wednesday evening at Viejas Arena. SDSU dropped to 8-10 overall following just its fourth double-figure defeat of the season and is now 2-4 in conference play, while the Cougars improved to 13-7 and 5-1 in MWC action to move into a three-way tie for first place in the league standings.
The Aztecs got 29 points from their senior front court tandem of Paris Johnson (San Diego, Calif.), who had 15 points on 7-of-10 shooting, and Jessika Bradley (Sacramento, Calif.), who made five of her seven shots from the floor and ended up with 14 points. Sophomore Courtney Clements (Long Beach, Calif.) reached double figures for the fifth-consecutive outing with 10 points. Bradley was the team's leading rebounder with six and also tallied two blocks, Johnson had three steals and guard Coco Davis (Sacramento, Calif.) contributed four assists.
As has become common place for San Diego State, the team raced out to an early lead as a result of some hot shooting, hitting its first five shots to go up 10-4. The Aztecs added to that advantage with consecutive lay-ups from Johnson and Bradley to push ahead by 10 points at 14-4 and again at 16-6. BYU then went on a 7-0 run to cut the gap in half, but SDSU still owned a nine-point lead with 5:24 until the break.
From there, however, the Aztec offense stalled, managing only one basket, while the Cougars scored 16 points, including a pair of triples and eight points by forward Kristen Riley to take the lead and own a 31-26 halftime advantage.
Bradley came out of the locker room and scored SDSU's first seven points to make the score 38-33 with 16:21 left to play. The Cougars responded with a bucket by Riley in the paint and pushed their advantage into double-figures with a 3-pointer, which led to a 9-0 run by the visitors. The Aztecs would pull to within 10 points at 47-37 on a lay-up by Davis, but after a timeout, BYU scored four points in a span of only two seconds following an SDSU intentional foul and went up by 14.
The Cougars led by as many as 19 at 63-44 at the 5:07 mark, before San Diego State scored the game's final seven points to finish out the 65-55 loss.
SDSU shot over 50 percent from the field, but went scoreless from beyond the arc (0-for-9) and was outrebounded 32-26, including a 12-5 margin on the offensive glass. The Cougars, who tallied 22 assists on their 27 baskets, were led by Riley's career-high 23 points on 11-of-16 shooting.
The Aztecs will travel to Wyoming on Saturday for a 12:30 p.m. PT tip-off against the Cowgirls at Arena Auditorium in Laramie, Wyo. The game will be televised live on The Mtn.