Women’s basketball: USU tripped up against SDSU
Utah State returned home Saturday and fell 59-70 to Mountain West opponent San Diego State.
It was the second-straight MW loss for the Aggies. They are now 6-15 on the season and 3-6 in the MW.
“We only played three or four minutes with a sense of urgency and aggressiveness,” said Aggie head coach Jerry Finkbeiner. “It’s just a frustrating night. For about 36 minutes of the game our opponents wanted the win a little bit more than we did.”
Utah State committed 20 turnovers in the game, which turned into 22 San Diego State points, and would eventually be the downfall of a late comeback attempt. The Aztec turned the ball over 11 times in the game, and only twice in the second half.
“I’ll credit San Diego State on their half court defense and full court defense,” Finkbeiner said. “But I would say 10 or 12 of our 20 turnovers we just plain shot ourselves in the foot.”
With under four minutes to play, Aztec guard McKenzie Fort hit a pull up jumper as the shot clock expired to put her team up nine and push the game out of reach for the Aggies.
San Diego State forward Erimma Amarikwa led all scorers with 17 points including shooting 9-10 from the free throw line.
Utah State led for a portion of the first half and trailed by five points, 28-33, at the break. The Aggies had 10 points off turnovers and 22 first half rebounds with seven coming on the offensive glass.
Things changed in the second half as SDSU came out sharp and increased its lead to 13 points in the first seven minutes of the. Utah State battled back and cut the lead to three points with seven minutes to play before San Diego State closed the door on the comeback.
“I felt we came out unprepared,” said freshman guard Tilar Clark. “We didn’t execute. Our coach really emphasized a couple of things and we just didn’t follow through with what we were supposed to do.”
San Diego State got to the free throw line 21 times in the second half and converted on 16 of them to put the game on ice and finish off Utah State. Senior Jasmine Porter was the leading scorer for Utah State pouring in 13 points off the bench.
“We need to cut down turnovers and execute the game plan,” said Elise Nelson, a senior guard for Utah State. “Our coach comes up with good game plans for us to win. It’s our job to execute that and we’ve been slacking in that area a little bit.”
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