LARAMIE, Wyo. – The San Diego State women’s basketball team (13-5, 2-3) lost at Wyoming (9-7, 3-1) 78-71 Saturday afternoon. The Aztecs trailed by 10 early in the fourth quarter but rallied to pull within two points with less than a minute to go, but the Cowgirls hit a three as the shot clock was expiring with 25 seconds left to pull away.
“We found our way back after a slow start,” Head coach Stacie Terry-Hutson said after the game. “We just turned the ball over too much in the fourth quarter and took some questionable shots. We came up here and scored 71 points, so it wasn’t our offense, it was our defense.”
Cali Clark had a double-double with a career-high 18 points and 13 rebounds. Adryana Quezada had 15 points on 7-for-10 shooting and Nat Martinez also had 15 on an efficient 5-for-6 shooting.
The Aztecs turned the ball over five times in the first five minutes which helped the Cowgirls begin the game on an 8-0 run.
“We spotted them eight points to start the game and that was the difference,” Terry-Hutson lamented.
After the slow start the Aztecs went on a 10-2 run to take the lead.
The game remained tight until late in the third quarter when the Aztecs had a five-minute stretch without a field goal.
The Cowgirls went up 64-54 with 8:17 remaining, but then the Aztecs held Wyoming to just one field goal over the next six minutes as they began to chip away at their deficit.
SDSU pulled within two points with 53 seconds left after a nice interior pass from Martinez to Clark. Wyoming’s Emily Mellema then hit a three from the corner that grazed the glass with 25 seconds left.
The Cowgirls’ Allyson Fertig, who leads the conference in scoring, finished with 21 points and nine rebounds.
STAT OF THE GAME
Wyoming shot 60% from the floor in the second half.
THE NOTE
This is the first time the Aztecs have lost when three or more players scored in double-digits (10-1).
UP NEXT
SDSU hosts Colorado State Wednesday evening.