Jensen-Baker’s career-high lifts Aggies over North Texas

The Utah State women’s basketball team grabbed a victory against the North Texas Eagles 66-55 Monday night at home in the Spectrum. The win snapped a three-game losing streak for the Aggies and put the team’s record at 4-7 on the season, and it was fueled by the high-volume scoring of senior guard Lindsey Jensen-Baker who scored a career-high 32 points. Fellow senior Hailey Bassett was also a major contributor for the Aggies, chipping in 21 points herself.

“It feels good,” Jensen-Baker said of her career night. “It was a little bit frustrating at the beginning of the season because I wasn’t shooting the way I knew I could, but now my nerves are relaxing and I’m just playing hard in the game and I think it’s coming to me.”

Coming out of the half, the Aggies were looking to protect and extend its lead and scored first and would keep the Eagles at bay, never letting them trim the lead by any more than three points. The Aggies would also have a more diverse source of scoring with Bassett scoring six, Jensen-Baker scoring five and sophomore guard Steph Gorman scoring three. The Aggies would end the third quarter with a 10 point lead at 55-to-45.

In the fourth quarter, the Aggies began pulling away and would extend the lead to 17 points at 64-47 with five minutes left in the game. Utah State would let up on the gas a little bit, allowing the Eagles to go on a 7-3 run, but would maintain a strong lead. The team scored 11 points in the quarter which were provided by Bassett (7) and Jensen-Baker (4) and ended the game on top, 66-55.

Lindsey Jensen-Baker’s night would end with a stat line of 32 points, nine rebounds, a team-high two assists and two steals. She shot 75 percent overall from the field, made five-of-eight three’s and was a perfect three-for-three from the free-throw line. Her 32 points, provided in just 32 minutes, put her at 18th in school history for most points scored in a single game.

Bassett would also end the game with 20-plus-point game with 21. She also record two rebounds, two assists, a block and a steal. With both seniors playing to such a high degree, it made coaching a little easier for Finkbeiner.

“Whenever two players are shooting like that, you run all your plays at them, you run your offense through them. You get them the ball,” he said. “A lot of tonight was just the recognition that North Texas was struggling to guard those two. They were having good nights so we get the ball in their hands.”

Beyond Bassett and Jensen-Baker, the Aggies didn’t receive much scoring. Gorman scored eight points, but no other player would score more than two points. However, other players did provide support in other ways. Freshman guard Faith Brantley provided four assists and redshirt sophomore guard Taylor Franson grabbed a career-high seven rebounds.

As a team, Utah State shot a season-high 49.1-percent from the field and another season-high 53.3 percent from the three-point line. The Aggies also grabbed 33 rebounds and scored 13 points off of 17 turnovers, which helped contribute to the win.

Utah State will next be playing at home on Thursday, December 19th against the 4-4 Idaho State Bengals.

Twitter: @Crooked_sports