LAS VEGAS — Following the women’s basketball team’s 66-49 loss to No. 21 UNLV at the Mountain West Championships, head coach Stacie Terry-Hutson noted the hard-fought effort put through in a remarkable season.
“We played some really good basketball here in Vegas, they don’t need to hang their heads,” Terry-Hutson said. “I’m really proud of them. I know it hurts. Our season is ending. We wanted this championship, but they should be proud of themselves because they laid the foundation, and they also laid the expectation, and that’s to be here next year.”
Although guard Abby Prohaska led the Aztecs (22-13, 10-8 Mountain West) in points with 13 points along with five rebounds, – SDSU trailed by five points after three quarters, 42-37 of the title game, but the Lady Rebels (30-2, 17-1 MW) never looked back the rest of the game after holding onto the lead.
After the first 10 minutes of game time, San Diego State held onto a 10-8 lead and shot 40.0 percent in the first quarter compared to UNLV’s 29% up to that point of the game.
With less than seven minutes remaining before halftime, the Aztecs built a six-point lead over UNLV, 20-14, but failed to capitalize for the rest of the half, going on a scoring drought till the half ended. Even with that, the Scarlet and Black defense held the No. 1 seed in the tournament to six points to finish before intermission, and both teams entered the locker room tied up 20-20.
“Honestly, we had them exactly where we wanted them,” Prohaska said. “It was 0-0 coming out of halftime. We wanted to keep it a low-scoring game, and I think we did that.”
Both SDSU and UNLV combined 0-for-10 on 3-pointers in the first half, but changed things up when they then totaled 10-of-17 from the bonus distance in the second half.
The Aztecs clung onto to their lead 24-22 with 8:12 left to play in the third quarter, until the Lady Rebels went on a 12-0 run during the next three and a half minutes to suddenly find themselves down 34-24 with 4:42 left in the quarter.
Guard Jada Lewis stopped the run from going any further with the team’s first three-pointer of the game, and the Aztecs came within five points, at the 3:00 minute mark.
The Lady Rebels opened the fourth and final period on an 11-0 run, and at 16 points, 53-37, held its biggest lead of the game with 7:38 to play to the 66-49 victory.
Forward Kim Villalobos tied a career-high with eight assists, surpassing 1,000 points in her career, while also adding six points, two steals and a block. Lewis and forward Adryana Quezada scored nine and eight points as well, respectively.
Despite the loss, Terry-Hutson provided a positive outlook on the team’s season and its future moving forward. She mentioned that having back-to-back 20-win seasons is going to help with recruitment next season.
“We’ve turned the corner. We had the blinker on for a long time, but we finally turned the corner,” Terry-Hutson said.
