The San José State women’s basketball team (10-15, 3-9 MW) managed to defend home court on Saturday, defeating Nevada (10-15, 5-7 MW) 72-67.
The game was a hard fought match for the Spartans with 13 ties and 14 lead changes occurring throughout the game.
The Spartans mainly have sophomore guard Sydni Summers to thank as she dropped a career high 21 points with eight coming from the free-throw line and nine of them coming from behind the arc.
“I mean, it’s what I practice,” Summers said. “For my teammates to be able to just hit me in the right spot and give me good passes that helps a lot.”
Summers also gave credit to junior big Finau Tonga and senior forward Djessira Diawara for setting good screens that allowed her to attack the basket and draw the fouls resulting in her perfect free throw shooting.
“With the getting downhill, Finau and Jess (Djessira) set amazing screens so the opposite team just didn’t know what to do,” Summers said.
Tonga, who was also a huge offensive presence in the paint, scored all 12 of her points at the basket at an efficient 6 for 9 shooting, giving some of the credit to Summers’s shooting.
“I really think just playing off the double team (and being) able to work that inside outside game is nice,” Tonga said. “When you have a shooter (Summers) that’s consistent and showing up like that, it’s hard to defend both.”
Although she played well offensively, Tonga did lead the game with seven turnovers and plans to patch that up in the coming games.
“Take care of the ball (and) make quicker decisions,” Tonga said. “I feel like I got stuck thinking too much, which gave them enough time to double (or) triple me.”
Sophomore guard Rylei Waugh also scored double-digits for the Spartans with 10 points, scoring 8 of those points in the second quarter and shooting perfect from the field in the quarter.
The Spartans outshot and outrebounded the Wolf Pack in all categories, much to SJSU head coach April Phillips’ delight.
“(I) was very proud of them,” Phillips said. “(We) shot the ball well (and) I thought we shared the ball really well and we just came ready to play.”
SJSU shot 41% from the field, 33% from the 3 point line and made 90% of its free throws compared to Nevada’s 39% from the field, 14% from 3 and 82% from the charity stripe, according to SJSU athletics web page.
The best quarter came in the third for the Spartans when they scored 23 points and saw their most efficient shooting, at 57% from the field, 75% from downtown while going perfect from the free-throw line.
“That’s been admittedly somewhat of an achilles heel for us sometimes coming out of the half,” Phillips said. “So they were locked in, they were focused and thank God for that third quarter because it helped us a lot.”
With the win, the Spartans broke their four game losing streak and look to start a winning streak as they are scheduled to play Wyoming on the road at 1 p.m. on Saturday.
