San Diego State women’s basketball defeated Westcliff 77-56 on Nov. 12 at Grossmont College.
Although the Aztecs (2-1) were scheduled to play at Viejas Arena, a power outage at SDSU forced the team to relocate the game to the gymnasium on Grossmont College’s campus.
Playing on neutral ground turned out to not be an issue for head coach Stacie Terry’s squad.
The night was highlighted by the Aztecs’ role players, who combined for 34 points coming off the bench.
“I’m glad we got a win tonight. That’s what we’re trying to do each game so we’re going to celebrate that,” Terry said. “We still got a lot of things to work on but we’re continuing to learn.”
Sixteen of those points off the bench came from freshman guard Isabela Hernandez. That total turned out to be a career high.
Hernandez scored 13 of her points in the second half while doing most of the damage from behind the three point line. She made four out of five attempts from downtown.
“I credit (senior guard Taylor Kalmer), who gave me some good passes throughout the game,” Hernandez said. “In the second half, we moved the ball better and that led to open shots.”
Kalmer tied her career-high 19 points while dishing out six assists and grabbed five rebounds in the process.
“It was fun getting my teammates going tonight,” Kalmer said. “We have to carry that going into our next games.”
Although the Aztecs controlled possession for 39 minutes and 18 seconds, the Warriors (0-2) made things interesting in the third quarter.
Westcliff forward Mammusu Secka went on a clinic by scoring 16 points in the span of eight minutes on 6-out-of-8 shooting to cut the Aztecs 16-point lead down to five.
Kalmer then hit a short jumper to extend the lead to seven points by the end of the third period.
The Aztecs started the fourth quarter hot by scoring 10 unanswered points and went on to build their lead to 22 points with 3:12 left.
“We had quite the adversity tonight but we pulled through at the end and came out better in the second half,” Kalmer said. “It wasn’t pretty but we got the win so that’s all that matters.”
With the victory Kalmer said each result helps the team’s confidence grow.
“Every day we’re getting more into the flow with each other and starting to sync our rhythm,” Kalmer said.
Next up for the Aztecs is a regular season game against Alabama A&M on Nov. 14 at Viejas Arena.
