Women’s basketball falls at Riverside
Ali Aird lived up to her nickname, but it wasn’t enough.
Her “Aird”-ness was back in scoring action at UC Riverside, putting up 17 points, but USU was unable to come up with a win against the Highlanders as it fell 66-56 in a hard-fought game.
Coming off of a game where she didn’t even have one bucket and only three points for the night, Aird reminded Aggie fans why she was the leading scorer for their team.
But Aird wasn’t the only Aggie to have a good night. Camille Brox saw more minutes than she has seen since her injury against Northridge. In 19 minutes, Brox had four points.
“It is hard to get into the flow of the game when you are on the bench,” said Brox. “It was good to get in and play.”
Once again, the Aggies didn’t start the game out well and fell behind early.
“We had to dig ourselves out of a hole,” said Utah State Head Coach Raegan Pebley. “It takes a lot of energy to fight back out of a hole.”
The first half was a difficult one for the Aggies. In the entire 20 minutes of play, USU only had one player, Jessica Freeman, shoot from the line.
The Aggies also had trouble finding the basket for most of the first half. Midway through the half, they had a scoring slump and went almost six minutes before they started hitting shots.
Christina Zdenek went 0 for 10 in the first half and saw very little playing time during the second. This was one of the reasons the Aggies shot only 24 percent from the field for the first half.
The game was unlike the last time the Aggies faced the Highlanders. Last time in the first half alone, Crystal Harris had 21 points. The Aggies managed to guard her a little better and held her to only eight points in the first half and 13 points in the game.
Unfortunately for USU, Cassandra Reeves and LaKeima Stephens stepped up for UCR and scored 29 points and 14 points respectively.
Brittany Hagen was a big help to the Aggies with 11 points, including one three-pointer. Terrin Johnston and Brittany Tressler also made their presence known on the court with nine points each.
“The effort was there,” said Brox. “Last time, we were so flat. But we came out aggressive and had effort, but it was a little too late.”
The Aggies will continue their quest for Anaheim on the road this Saturday at Cal State Fullerton. The game will be an emotional one for the Aggies because of their close loss last time the two teams saw each other. The game will start at 8 p.m.
-aedmunds@cc.usu.edu