Aggie women snap five-game skid against Spartans
After losing five straight Mountain West games, Utah State bounced back with an 85-80 win over San Jose State.
“It’s very nice,” said senior guard Elise Nelson, who had 13 points and tied a career-high 13 rebounds for the game’s only double-double. “We’ve had so many close games. All of our games have been really competitive. It’s nice to pull one out because we’ve been on the short end of it so many times.”
USU freshman guard Funda Nakkasoglu was the game’s leading scorer with 25 points — 16 coming in the second half, seven in the final two minutes.
“Funda came up huge,” said Aggie head coach Jerry Finkbeiner. “If she goes four or five minutes without shooting, we’re in trouble. … She’s got to get involved. With a few minutes left I said, ‘Funda you have to shoot it,’ and she gave me a wink. I like winks like that.”
With just over a minute to play, the game reached its 12th tie at 78 points. Franny Vaaulu snatched a critical rebound, finished with 11 boards and was fouled on the play. Vaaulu made both her shots and Utah State wouldn’t relinquish the lead again. Nakkasoglu and Nelson also chipped in with free throws down the stretch to extend the Aggie lead and get the win.
The rebounding battle was won by Utah State. The Aggies had 55 rebounds, 20 on the offensive glass, compared to 49 total for San Jose State. Strong defense also played a role for the USU, contributing 10 blocks and forcing 13 turnovers in the game.
“Rebounding is just a hustle thing,” Nelson said. “You’ve got to have the ‘want to.’ It’s something our team has been working on. I’m proud of how our team rebounded tonight.”
Utah State scored first and traded buckets with San Jose State before taking the lead with less than 10 minutes to play in the first half. The Aggies built up a 12-point lead with two minutes to go in the half, but the Spartans hit two straight 3-pointers to cut the deficit to six going into halftime.
It was more of the same for San Jose State in the second half. The Spartans hit three more 3-point shots in the first two minutes of the second half to cut the Aggie lead down to four. SJSU eventually regained the lead but could only gain a four-point advantage before USU came back.
“We were up at points. We were down at points” Nakkasoglu said. “We’ve never really been able to finish out a game this season. We knew that it was time. We got together and played the full 40 minutes.”
For Utah State, now 7-8 on the season and 4-9 in the MW, it was what coaches and players alike called a “must-win” game. There are five more MW games to play and only two and a half weeks before the conference tournament.
— kalen.s.taylor@gmail.com
Twitter: @kalen_taylor