Utah State women’s basketball escapes with a 62-59 win over Colorado State
LAS VEGAS (The Utah Statesman) — Colorado State was able to play the Aggies closer than their first two meetings, but Utah State was able to come away with a 62-59 in its opening game of the Mountain West Conference Tournament.
Newly honored all-conference player Shannon Dufficy wasn’t the lead contributor for the Aggies in the first half of Sunday’s opening game against Colorado State, but this wasn’t a problem for Utah State. Senior guard Rachel Brewster continued to be in good form as she put up nine of the Aggies’ 30 points in the first half. Junior guard Olivia West also had nine points at the half, going 3-of-5 from deep.
“Olivia and Rachel, we needed that first half out of them,” said Utah State head coach Jerry Finkbeiner. “Definitely needed them.”
However, Colorado State took advantage of Utah State failing to hit its shots in the third quarter, closing in on the Aggies’ lead and gaining one of its own by the end of the quarter. Utah State shot 1-of-7 for the first four minutes of the quarter, allowing the Rams to close the gap. Overall, the Aggies ended up going 3-of-16 from the field as a team and were looking at a 38-37 deficit.
This didn’t phase the Aggies. Utah State opened up the fourth quarter hungry to not let its tournament run end in the first game, going on an 11 to nothing run over the first three minutes of the quarter.
While Brewster led the team in the first half, it took a full team effort to turn the ship around in final two quarters. Brewster would go scoreless in the second half but Utah State ended the game with six players scoring more than eight points, including three in double figures.
Rachel Brewster at the Mountain West Conference Championships Sunday, March 10, 2019.
“We’ve struggled all year long with scoring,” Finkbeiner said. “Shannon’s scored all year but we’ve had a hard time having other people score with her. The last five out of seven games, six out of seven games, we’ve finally had two, three, sometimes four double-figure girls.”
Dufficy would make up for a slow first half by scoring seven points and pulling down eight rebounds in the second half. She ended the game with 11 points and 15 rebounds, netting an 18th double-double of the season, a Utah State single season record.
Junior guard Eliza West also broke a record tonight for the Aggies. She dished out three assists to set the career assists record with 437, previously held by Jennifer Schlott. Freshman guard Steph Gorman stepped up for the Aggies as well in the second half, scoring nine of her 10 points in the final two quarters.
“We’re now starting to get some punch there offensively and I think our late season run has been due to the fact we’ve started to score more points,” Finkbeiner said.
Colorado State responded to Utah State’s 11-to-0 run to open the quarter by going on a 17-to-8 run of its own over a six minute period toward the end of the game. Between all the ups and downs of the second half, Utah State was up by just one point with 30 seconds left in the game.
“I know there’s two sides to the story here,” Finkbeiner said. “Colorado State’s view and our view. We did the things that we needed to do to get the win. So we’re really proud of the girls.”
A strange looking pump-fake free-throw from a Colorado State player gave the Aggies the ball back under 30 seconds and all Utah State had to do from there was make its free-throws, which it did. Utah State would go on to shoot 6-of-6 from the line to close out the game, securing a 62-59 win and a trip to the next round.
“We need to do more than that tomorrow night,” Finkbeiner said. “Because tomorrow night’s game against Wyoming, they have an inside-out, and they have one of the better records in the conference.”
The 6-seed Aggies will take on the 3-seed Cowgirls in the Mountain West Conference Tournament quarterfinals Monday night at 9:30 p.m. MST. A win would place Utah State in the semifinals for the first time since joining the conference in 2013-14.
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