USU women’s basketball grabs home victory against SJSU
Utah State women’s basketball defeated the San Jose State Spartans Wednesday night 82-78 in Logan. Just one home game away from the conference tournament, the Aggies extended their home record to 11-4, fifth in the conference.
The game was close until an Aggie run opened a 20-point lead with four minutes left in the first half. Credit for that lead goes mostly to Deja Mason, who scored 10 points and tallied six rebounds, and Rachel Brewster, who had 16 points in the opening half.
The biggest threat to the Aggies on the night was the Spartans’ Dezz Ramos, who scored 20 of her team’s 33 first-half points.
The Aggies saw the first signs of trouble in the third quarter when a strong Spartan performance on the board forced a two-and-a-half minute scoring drought. That dry spell allowed the USU lead to dwindle to just 10 at the end of the third quarter. San Jose State completed the comeback around the six-minute mark of the final stanza thanks to a 3-pointer from Ramos.
The score wobbled between a one and two point difference for the next three minutes until two hook shots from under the basket from freshman Hailey Bassett gave the Aggies to a 73-68 lead. During those three minutes and following, the Spartans saw a 4:33 scoring drought, highlighted by leading scorer Ramos’s 0-4 shooting performance in that time.
With under a minute to go, it remained a two-possession game until Olivia West made it to the foul line and sunk both shots to give the Aggies a 77-69 lead.
A Spartan 3-pointer brought it to 77-72 with 41 seconds to go. Olivia West got to the line in a bonus situation and made both her shots, but SJSU’s Taylor Turney followed up with a made jump shot and extra point due to a foul by Eliza West.
Brewster got to the line shortly after and made both her shots, bringing the lead to 81-75, but Ramos cut that to 81-78 with a 3-pointer with 12 seconds left in the game.
Eliza West scored the last point of the game at the line and solidified a USU victory 82-78.
Overall the Aggies out-rebounded San Jose State 52-39. Brewster led the team with 22 points and Ramos led the game with 37 points.