Team's focus stays on court
Women win 73-64 in first game since coach's firing
By NATHAN HATHAWAY
With the backs of their minds now void of the coaching drama, the Fresno
State women’s basketball team was free to focus all its energy on
beating San Jose State.
That extra focus paid off Thursday night as the Bulldogs topped the Spartans
73-64 in front of an announced crowd of 3,545 at the Save Mart Center.
Freshman guard Tierre Wilson scored all of the Bulldogs’
bench points with nine on Thursday night. Photo by Joseph
Hollak |
With the win, the Bulldogs ensured they will not have to play a play-in
game at next week’s WAC tournament, the third straight year the
Bulldogs (18-9, 9-8 Western Athletic Conference) will have a first-round
bye.
“I don’t know if the girls really know the situations,”
interim coach Adrian Wiggins said. “They wanted to win these games,
and they knew if they did that, everything else would fall into place.
Fresno State came out early in Thursday’s game and made sure the
Spartans didn’t get off to an ideal start, forcing San Jose State
to turn over the ball on its first four possessions, though Fresno State
was able to turn that into only two points. The Spartans had six turnovers
in the first four minutes of the game.
The Bulldogs took no chances inside against the conference’s leading
shooter, trying to double-team freshman forward Amber Jackson every time
she caught the ball inside in the first half.
But Wiggins said that wasn’t by design.
“I have no idea where that came from. That wasn’t really what
we wanted to do,” Wiggins said. “We did a lot. We were helping
really early. She still got good looks and scored.” Jackson had
10 points in the first half on 5-for-6 shooting. She finished with 14
points.
The Bulldogs had some of their best ball movement of the season, making
quick, crisp interior passes that caught the defense off-guard and often
resulted in open looks for Fresno State.
Fresno State overcame its own poor shooting in the first half to take
a 33-30 lead into halftime. The Bulldogs’ saving grace in the first
half was their ability to force turnovers. Fresno State forced 15 turnovers,
nine of them off steals, in the opening half. The Spartans finished with
26 turnovers, double Fresno State’s 13.
“Our game plan was to speed them up and we felt they would turn
it over some,” Wiggins said. “They did. That was nice.”
San Jose State (16-11, 9-8 WAC) wasted no time establishing itself in
the second half, outscoring the Bulldogs 16-4, including a 12-0 stretch,
in the first five minutes of the half while shooting 85 percent to the
Bulldogs’ 20 percent.
“What was going through my head was ‘they just won’t
go away,’ ” said point guard Mirenda Swearengin, who posted
her first career double-double with 11 points and a team-leading 10 rebounds.
“(I thought,) ‘we need to pick up the intensity.’ ”
But Fresno State retook control, battling back with an 18-4 run of its
own to take a 55-50 lead. Fresno State shot 6 for 8 from the floor during
the nearly seven-minute stretch while the Spartans went 2 for 10 and committed
four turnovers.
“In the second half, I felt, especially in the last 10 minutes of
the game, we did a good job defending the way Fresno State defends,”
Wiggins said. “And because of that I thought our pressure created
some trouble for them.”
Aritta Lane led all scorers with 22 points. Amy Parrish and Chantella
Perera had 13 points apiece.
San Jose State senior Lamisha Augustine, a Roosevelt High graduate, had
nine points and 10 rebounds in her final trip to Fresno as a member of
the Spartans.
San Jose State made a strong push at the end, but the Bulldogs came through
when they needed to most, hitting nine of 12 free throws and an Aritta
Lane 3-pointer in the final two minutes.
“We match up well with San Jose State. We have for a few years now,”
Wiggins said. “We’ve always played them well.”
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