After the women’s basketball team’s 72-51 first-round win over No. 10 seed San José State at the Mountain West Championships, Meghan Fiso laughed and then repeated herself as prompted by head coach Stacie Terry-Hutson during the postgame press conference.
“I think we’re learning that defense is what fuels us,” the senior guard said again, driving home the coach’s point. “Getting those two charges, I knew that my team was going to be super excited for me, excited that we (could) have another opportunity on the offensive end.”
On a night where Fiso led the No. 7 seed Aztecs (20-12, 10-8 Mountain West) in scoring — equaling her career-high of 15 points — the drawn charges were exemplary of the defensive effort by the Scarlet and Black on Sunday evening in Las Vegas.
SDSU put San José State (7-24, 2-16) behind by eight early and never allowed the Spartans back into the game, opening up a 21-8 lead after the first quarter and never letting the lead dip below double digits.
“I was really proud of our defensive effort tonight,” Terry-Hutson said. “These last two games… I thought they were locked into the game plan defensively and that’s really what we need in March.”
The two key points: hold SJSU’s leading scoring forward Amhyiah Moreland under 12 points and limit the Spartans’ 3-point looks.
Check and check.
Moreland, after scoring 18 points in both regular season matchups, was held to 2 points on 1-of-8 shooting. Terry-Hutson credited the defensive efforts by Kim Villalobos and Khylee Pepe in keeping Moreland off the block and forcing her to catch passes further from the rim.
The Aztecs held SJSU to 6-of-19 shooting from downtown overall while netting 8-of-21 long balls. As a whole, the Scarlet and Black had a 43.6% to 30.0% advantage from the field.
“I thought we withstood some of those (SJSU pushes) and were able to get a lead and play from that,” Terry-Hutson said. “That’s a lot of maturity that we are still learning, and it was just fun to see them have some success with what we had set out to do.”
It fueled an offensive performance that saw 10 of the 12 players that appeared score points, with Abby Prohaska adding 12 points and five rebounds, and Kim Villalobos scoring 11 points with three assists. Natalija Grizelj equaled her career-high of 3 points in four minutes of action in the fourth quarter.
SDSU had helpers on 19 of their 24 baskets, led by Sarah Barcello’s game-high five assists.
“We always say it in the locker room before we go out that our priority should be sharing the ball,” Prohaska said. “We play better when every single person on the court touches it.”
Up next is a showdown with No. 2 seed New Mexico, whom the Aztecs split the season series with. SDSU won at Viejas Arena on Feb. 7 while the Lobos took the meeting at The Pit on Feb. 28.
Tip-off is scheduled for 5 p.m. and the game will be streamed on the Mountain West Network.
“Everyone is on the same page with telling each other to stay poised,” Villalobos said. “We have a lot of games left to play, that’s our mindset here.”
