Women’s basketball completes sweep of Pacific
Behind a season-high 24 points from Christina Zdenek, the Utah State women’s basketball team overcame a four-point deficit in the final minutes of play to win 77-75 over the Pacific Tigers Saturday night in California.
With a little more than three minutes left to play in the game, freshman Taylor Richards fouled out. She had to sit on the bench, along with Ali Aird who had fouled out a couple minutes earlier, and watch as the Aggies tried to defend their 71-70 lead.
But Pacific, and the officials, weren’t going to make it easy. Brittany Tressler fouled out of the game, and the Ags were without their three leading scorers. USU was saddled with 25 fouls in the game to the Tigers’ 16.
A 5-0 run by the Tigers put Utah State down by four with 1:46 left to play in the game. But a 3-pointer from Christina Zdenek, who was a perfect four-of-four from behind the arc, brought the Aggies to within one.
A basket from Camille Brox with less than one minute left to play gave USU another one-point lead at 76-75. Brox then made the second of two free throws with 10 seconds on the clock to put the Ags up by two.
Pacific could have tied the game, but a block from Jessica Freeman as the buzzer rang ended all hopes of overtime for the Tigers. With the block, her fourth in the game, Freeman became Utah State’s all-time leading shot blocker with 71 blocked shots.
Utah State had three players scoring in double-digits. Tressler, starting for the second time this season, broke out of a scoring slump with 17 points. Aird, tallying 12 points before fouling out, also had double-digits along with Zdenek’s 24 points.
Pacific also had three players scoring over 10 points. Carolina Ruiz had 19 points while Dana Zimmerman and Tina Sanerivi added 14 and 13 points respectively.
With the win, the Aggies swept the Tigers in the two-game series for the season. Utah State improved to 12-10 overall and 7-6 in the Big West, sixth place overall.
The Aggie women will now return home to face UC Riverside Thursday night at 7 p.m. in Logan.
-aedmunds@cc.usu.edu