The San Diego State Aztecs women’s basketball team defeated the Colorado State Rams 74-71 in overtime at Viejas Arena on Saturday, Dec. 30th.
The Aztecs entered the game with a record of nine wins and four losses after coming off a dominating performance against Florida Atlantic. Colorado State suffered its third loss of the season after entering the game with nine wins and two losses.
SDSU had three players in double digits against the Rams. Jada Lewis and Abby Prohaska both led the Aztecs in scoring with 22 points, while Kim Villalobos also contributed 15 points.
CSU guard McKenna Hofschild was one to watch out for. She entered the game averaging 22.1 points for the Rams and scored 34 points against SDSU. Head coach Stacie Terry-Hutson spoke highly of Hofschild.
“(Hofschild) is a really, really hard guard,” Terry-Hutson said. “She’s a very special player, a once in a lifetime type of player. She’s done a lot for our league and for Colorado State.”
At the start of the game, it was very close between the two teams. Prohaska was the first to score for SDSU with a high-post jump shot. By the end of the first period, the Aztecs held the lead over Colorado State 20-15.
At the beginning of the second quarter, Prohaska was called for her second foul of the game, which forced her to sit out the rest of the second period. Terry-Hutson expressed her concern about not having Prohaska on the floor.
“(Prohaska is) the heart and soul of this team,” Terry-Hutson said. “Jada, Alyssa (Jackson), Megan (Fiso) and some of the kids who came off the bench stepped up in her absence and kept us going so we could take the lead into the half.”
At the half, SDSU led CSU 35-29 with the Aztecs shooting 41% from the field. During the third quarter, the Aztecs struggled to score and went the first five minutes of the second half without scoring a field goal.
Colorado State was able to close the gap and eventually took the lead behind Hofschild, who scored 10 points for the Rams in the third. By the end of the period, CSU outscored SDSU 22-7 with the Rams leading 51-42.
Villalobos started the fourth quarter with a layup to help close the gap. With 7:20 left in the game, the Aztecs trailed the Rams 54-45 before Villalobos scored a jumper in the paint to cut the lead to 54-47.
For the next minute, SDSU went on a scoring frenzy to close the gap to 54-52. The Aztecs then retook the lead after a clutch 3-pointer by Jackson to make the score 55-54 with 5:29 left in the game.
The two teams then went back and forth for the rest of regulation with the score tied at 60 with one minute left. Both Prohaska and Hofschild missed the last shots of the fourth to send the game into overtime.
During overtime, both teams began to trade shots once again with Prohaska and Lewis leading the scoring for SDSU. Hofschild kept CSU in the game with 8 points of her own.
With the score tied at 71-71 with 8 seconds left in overtime, Lewis hit the game-winning shot by scoring a clutch three-pointer. CSU guard Sanna Strom took the last shot for the Rams, but missed, giving the Aztecs a 74-71 win over CSU.
Lewis spoke about her thought process during the game-winning shot.
“Nothing, just shoot it,” Lewis said. “It’s just muscle memory; the clock was running down, I saw daylight and just took it.”
SDSU’s next game will be against Air Force on Wednesday, Jan. 3 in Colorado Springs, Colorado at Clune Arena.
Tip-off will be at 5:30 p.m., and the game will also be streamed on the Mountain West Network.
