Feb. 8, 2017
SAN DIEGO -
A battle from beyond the 3-point arc did not favor the Aztecs, as San Diego State women's basketball scored 13 3-pointers to San Jose State's 12 3-pointers but fell, 99-90, in a Mountain West juggernaut Wednesday night in Viejas Arena.
"We spent a lot of time working on our offense over the past week and obviously that was apparent with us putting 90 points up, 31 of which came in the first quarter," head coach Stacie Terry said. "We played three quarters really well and then fizzled at the end. What we're struggling to do as a unit is to put 40 minutes together in a complete game."
Suffering its fifth-straight loss, the Aztecs move to 3-8 in conference play and they are now 8-14 overall. SJSU, meanwhile, improves to 5-6 against MW foes and rises to 8-15 on the year.
The teams combined to knock down 25 3-pointers, marking just the third time this season a Mountain West contest featured 25-or-more threes (Colorado State vs. New Mexico and Nevada vs. San Jose State). SDSU narrowly edged the Spartans, 13-12, from 3-point range, marking the Aztecs' sixth game this year with double-digit threes.
Lexy Thorderson led the Scarlet and Black with 17 points on five 3-pointers, and snatched a team-high four steals. Kymberly Ellison drilled four treys and recorded 16 points. Geena Gomez grabbed an SDSU-best seven boards and four assists, also a team high, to go alongside 15 points.
The first quarter was a great display of offensive prowess by both teams. Each side knocked down five long balls, with the period capped by Geena Gomez's buzzer-beating 3-pointer from the left side. After 10 minutes of play, SDSU held a 31-23 lead, its most points tallied in an opening frame since its 83-78 win over Nevada on Jan. 4. For the frame, the Aztecs shot 11-for-16, their best shooting performance of the game, while the Spartans were 8-for-20 in the quarter.
In the second quarter, San Jose State was able to close the gap with a sustained run midway through the frame. The Spartans scored eight unanswered points to tie the game at 40-40 with 2:09 to go, but Ellison stopped the bleeding with a 3-pointer at 1:58. She tacked on a layup 53 seconds later for the 45-40 Aztec advantage, and, after a jumper by San Jose State's Paris Baird with 29 seconds to go, McKynzie Fort drilled a last-second shot of her own to close the quarter and hand the Scarlet and Black a 47-42 lead heading into the intermission.
Both teams continued to battle but the Scarlet and Black was able to pad its margin in the third quarter. The Aztecs took their largest lead of the game when they went on an 11-0 run halfway through the third quarter for the 69-58 margin. But the Spartans stuck with it, out-scoring SDSU, 12-4, in the final 4:03 of the period for the tight 73-70 Aztec lead after 30 minutes of play.
The Spartans used that rally to spark them, however, and used an outstanding fourth quarter to secure the win. San Jose State out-scored San Diego State, 29-17, shooting an astonishing 90 percent from the field (9-for-10) and shot at the same pace from the free-throw line.
For the game, San Jose State shot 55.2 percent (37-for-67), and the Aztecs shot at a 43.1 percent (31-for-72) clip. The Spartans also out-rebounded SDSU, 41-33, fed more assists, 18-16 and won the battle in the paint, out-scoring the Scarlet and Black, 34-28. San Diego State recorded more steals, 9-5, had fewer turnovers, 16-10, and posted more points off turnovers, 15-13.
"Everyone can play in this league," Terry said. "Night in and night out, you're going to get a team that's hungry and wants to win and needs to win, because we're all bunched up in the middle in this conference. We can't take possessions off. We can't have droughts where we're not scoring. We just didn't play well for 40 minutes tonight."
San Diego State hits the road for its next contest on Sat., Feb. 11, a 4 p.m. contest at Nevada.