Lady Ags upset bid falls short
After a thrilling one-point overtime victory in the first round of the WAC tournament – the Lady Aggies first-ever tournament win – USU (16-15, 9-7) was hoping to extend it’s winning streak against No. 1-seeded Fresno State.
Despite a balanced and inspired performance by the No. 6-seeded Aggies, the Bulldogs were able to hold off USU and advance to the WAC championship game with a thrilling 57-54 victory.
“A loss in no way takes away from this team’s confidence, a loss doesn’t take away this team’s success, and it definitely doesn’t take away this team’s relationships with each other,” said USU head coach Raegan Pebley. “I’m just the most blessed coach in the country to get to be a part of their lives.”
Early on, the Aggies, who’d lost both regular season games to the Bulldogs, looked overmatched as they quickly fell behind 7-0 just three minutes into the game. Finally, USU’s Alice Coddington connected on a driving layup at the 16:40 mark to record the Aggies first points of the game.
The Aggies, as they would throughout the contest, used an 8-0 run to get back in the game and pull even with the Bulldogs at 17 with 11 minutes left in the opening period.
Behind some stellar guard play and hot outside shooting, the Bulldogs would respond with a run of their own though. Heading into the break the Aggies found themselves in their biggest deficit of the game down 36-24 after Fresno’s Jaleesa Ross connected on a 3-point shot with only seconds remaining.
Ross and her backcourt counterpart LaShay Fears hurt the Aggies throughout the game. Ross finished with 21 points on 8-of-15 shooting, including 5-of-8 from beyond the arc, while Fears chipped in 18 on 8-of-13 shooting.
No other Fresno State players scored in double figures.
Despite the deflating play at the end of the half, USU opened the second half on a tear, and began to chip away at the deficit. The Aggies scored the first six points of the second period to pull within six, 36-30.
All told, the Aggies used a 28-10 run to not only pull even with the regular season conference champions, but to take the lead.
Behind the strong play of Danyelle Snelgro and Ana Pares, the Aggies battled back to take a six-point lead on a pull-up jumper by Pares with five minutes left in the game.
“You could tell by a lot of things, body language, talk on the court and things like that,” Snelgro said. “You could just definitely tell that we had a momentum shift in our favor and we wanted to capitalize on it.”
From that point on, though, the Lady Ags would struggle from the floor as they were held without a field goal over the final five minutes.
The Bulldogs bit into the Aggie lead and were able to retake the lead when Ross connected on her fifth 3-pointer to put FSU up 54-52 with 2:47 to play.
Over the next couple minutes neither team could score until USU’s Lydia Whitehead was sent to the line 53.4 seconds to play. Trailing by two, Whitehead calmly sank both free throws to knot the game up at 54.
“Just a game that I feel showed our teams character,” Pebley said. “We’re blue collar, we never gave up and we worked really hard.”
Three Aggies finished in double figures with Snelgro putting in 11 and Coddington and Whitehead combining for 10 each. Pares was just short, finishing with nine.
Great defense had the Bulldogs working late in the shot clock and it looked like the Lady Ags would have a chance to play for the win until FSU’s Hayley Munro connected on her only 3 of the game to put the No. 1 seed up 57-54 with 26.5 to play.
After a USU timeout Snelgro drove for a layup, but the attempt rolled off the rim and the Bulldogs corralled the rebound. With 14 seconds left Fears was sent to the line with a chance to ice the game.
But, she missed the front end of the one-and-one, giving life to the Aggies. However, the Lady Ags could not get a decent look and Chelsea Burns desperation 3 at the buzzer clanked off the iron and fell to the floor – along with the Aggie hopes of an upset.
“I feel like this season was kind of the catalyst for lots of great seasons to come,” Pebley said.
Pares agreed.
“I think we had more ups than downs, we’re looking up high, we never looked back,” she said. “It was all positive. We don’t regret anything.”
–t.olsen@aggiemail.usu.edu