Women’s basketball earns second victory
Timing is everything.
Utah State’s Virginia Jennings hit her first field goal of the game with just one minute left to play, breaking a 63-63 tie against Cal State Northridge and leading the Aggies to a 69-63 victory Saturday at the Matadome.
The win was Utah State’s first on the road this year.
“[Virginia] played like we needed her to play,” said Utah State Head Coach Raegan Pebley.
Jennings had an incredible game, though her six points don’t tell the whole story. Early in the first half, when freshman Camille Brox was injured and taken out of the game, Jennings came in to play 29 minutes on a sprained ankle.
“Her [injured] ankle actually made her play better, slower and more in control,” Pebley said.
Jennings was not the only Aggie to have a good game, however. Ali Aird pulled her second double-double in a row on this road trip, tallying 15 points and pulling down 10 rebounds. Freshman Brittany Hagen once again added a spark to the team, scoring 15 points, including two threes that gave USU the lead early in the half, for the second game in a row.
“Hagen is playing like we knew she should, and we are proud of her,” Pebley said.
Christina Zdenek led the Aggies with 16 points. Freshman Brittany Tressler had one of her best games of the season, adding seven points and four rebounds off the bench.
“It doesn’t matter who’s scoring, we are all excited,” Tressler said. “I am just happy that I could step it up for the team and get a win.”
The team won by rebounding, as USU outrebounded the Matadors 43-27. However, USU also managed to have a good shooting game the second half, shooting 54 percent from the floor and overall shooting 46 percent for the night.
Utah State proved it is possible to learn from its mistakes. The Aggies worked hard to hold CS Northridge’s leading scorer Ofa Tulikihihifo, who averaged 15 points per game, to just two points, only 1-for-7 on the floor. The Aggie women were helped by the fact that Tulikihihifo got into foul trouble early and had to sit out for most of the first half.
Unfortunately, the Aggies nearly lost the game because they let other not-so-obvious players step it up, again. Jamie McCaa, who previously had not played very often, led all scorers with 19 points and along with Brezya Rhodes and her 15 points were the only ones to score in double-digits for the Matadors.
One thing that Pebley and her team felt made a huge difference at this game was the number of supporters. Many players had most of their family there and some even had former teammates there supporting them. It was definitely something that the team liked and responded to.
“It feels so awesome, and the team is so awesome,” Tressler said. “We’ve got two under our belt and we are going to go for more.”
The team will be playing at the Spectrum on Saturday against Cal State Fullerton at 7 p.m.
-aedmunds@cc.usu.edu