On the first day of the Mountain West Conference tournament, the San Diego State Aztecs women’s basketball team (15-15, 8-10 Mountain West) was able to successfully win their first game of the tournament against Boise State (8-21, 4-13 Mountain West) and keep their season alive.
Coming off of their last game when they scored just 46 points against Air Force, the Aztecs beat the No. 10 seed Boise State 65-56 in a game that they had control of the majority. The game on March 6 was the third the two teams have played this season, and the Aztecs came out victorious on the season series winning two games to their one.
When the two teams last met on Feb. 5, the Scarlet and Black struggled to play defense on the road against the tall and physical Boise State team. This time around, the Aztecs were able to withstand the energy that the Broncos brought with them.
“You know, Boise is a really good team, they gave us a really hard-fought battle, we struggled with them at Boise with our post play, but I think we did a really good job trying to neutralize that strength of theirs,” head coach Stacie Terry-Hutson said when asked about her team’s performance. “I’m proud of how we defended, a lot of things we can work on still, we haven’t played our best basketball yet, but I’m really proud of the effort and the fight to get this victory tonight.”
Improving majorly from their last game — which was against Air Force on the road — the Aztecs found a good rhythm shooting the basketball as they shot 42.1% from the field and 33.3% from the three point line. With a lot of great scorers on the team, the Aztecs have the potential to do better, but this win was definitely a step in the right direction.
As she has been all year, freshman Asia Avinger was a catalyst for the team’s success against Boise State. She finished with 18 points, five assists, and two steals on the night. Backing her up was junior Mallory Adams, who finished with 12 points while seniors Sophia Ramos and Mercedes Staples finished with 11 points each. These performances resulted in four out of the five starters finishing the game in double digit scoring.
“I think by starting off aggressive it set the tone for the rest of the game, and everyone else followed suit,” Avinger said when asked what was the reason her team won.
Moving forward, the Aztecs will be playing the number two seed New Mexico on March 7. The Aztecs will have their work cut out for them as they have played them twice already this year and have lost both meetings.
“I’m really excited for our young ladies to continue to play, March is such a special month, so we are excited we get to lace them up tomorrow,” Terry-Hutson said, when speaking about the next game.
If the Aztecs are successful against the Lobos, they will be moving on to the next round of the playoffs and even closer to their goal of bringing a Mountain West championship back to San Diego.
