In a nail-biting ending, the San Diego State women’s basketball team came up short in a road game against the New Mexico Lobos, 66-63, at The Pit on Wednesday night.
It was a thrilling match with the lead being exchanged 20 times.
The Aztecs (18-11, 9-7 Mountain West) had three double-digit scoring players, Kim Villalobos putting up 12 points, with Jada Lewis and Abby Prohaska both adding 11 points. Adryana Quezada also had a game-high 11 rebounds.
“We gave our maximum effort, I thought that they played hard,” said head coach Stacie Terry-Hutson. “New Mexico is a good team. It’s unfortunate but I thought we did a good job.”
The beginning of the game was scrappy, with lots of fouls drawn by both sides. SDSU fouled 11 times which turned into 16 points for the Lobos (20-9, 14-3) from the free-throw line.
New Mexico committed eight fouls that only turned into three points for the Aztecs. However, the Aztecs’ field goal shooting kept them in the lead, drilling 42% of their shots and went into the half with the lead 33-31.
At the start of the second half, the Lobos came out with full-court pressure and outscored the Aztecs 17-13. Prohaska and Quezada came to life, scoring 10 points combined to keep the score close at the end of the third quarter, a 48-46 Lobos lead.
In the fourth quarter, the score was tied up four different times with four lead changes. The stats ended up matching up perfectly in numerous categories: field goal percentage (37%), 3-point percentage (17%), rebounds (38) and points off turnovers (19).
As the Aztecs were down by five with nine seconds left, freshman guard Mia Davis tacked on two of her nine points with a baseline drive and closed the gap to three.
On the Lobos inbound play out of a timeout, Prohaska picked off her third steal with three seconds left. She dribbled to half-court and launched the ball for a long 3, but it hit the heel of the rim as the final buzzer went off.
Ultimately, it came down to free throws. The Lobos shot 28 of 34 from the line and the Aztecs shot 11 of 12.
“Thirty-four free throws to our 12 is hard to come back from. We have to defend and make sure that we get back and support in other ways,” Terry-Hutson said.
With just two games left, every game is magnified. This loss is tough for SDSU, which stood fourth in the Mountain West Conference before but dropped to sixth behind Colorado State.
The Aztecs face the UNLV Lady Rebels — the number one team in the Mountain West — in Las Vegas on Saturday, March 2 at 2 p.m.
The game will be streamed on Mountain West Network.
