LOGAN – It took a few tries, but the youthful squad under new Utah State women’s basketball head coach Wes Brooks found a way to put things together for (most of) a full game and it resulted in the team’s first win Thursday morning, 67-51, over Cal State Bakersfield.
Utah State’s first two games were losses in close contests against Kansas City (80-77) and Cal State Northridge (69-65), both games in which USU held fourth-quarter leads. Utah State saw a similar second-half drop-off in performance, seeing a 21-point lead drop to eight as late as 6:16 in the fourth quarter.
The first-half lead was built largely on the back of 17 forced turnovers. Those became 19 points for the Aggies and crippled CSUB’s offense, which managed just 23 after the end of two quarters. Utah State, meanwhile, shot 47.4 percent from the field, having no trouble finishing shots.
Not insignificant in that early dominance was the crowd. At least once a year, Utah State has worked with local elementary schools to bring in thousands of children to attend a game. About 3,100 screaming youth injected energy into the Aggies for this game.
“Incredible environment,” Brooks said. “I’ll try and get Diana [Sabau] a petition (to) do this every game. Because if it’s going to be that loud, I mean, it made a big advantage for us today, especially in the first half.”
“The atmosphere was so amazing tonight,” USU forward Jamisyn Heaton said. “It was crazy. I didn’t realize how loud it could get in this gym. The first time the jumbotron said ‘Get Loud’ I just remember all these kids just screaming at the top of their lungs and I could hardly even hear myself think.”
At halftime, the Aggies led 42-23, just shy of doubling up the visiting Roadrunners (they actually had doubled them up a couple of times at 26-13 and 42-21). Everything was going as well as one could hope.
The third quarter changed that dynamic.
Utah State scored just seven points in the third — compared to 21 in each of the first two quarters and 18 in the fourth. Combined with the fact CSU Bakersfield put up 15, it shaved off a lot of USU’s lead. And when the Roadrunners were cutting their deficit all the way back to single digits, it felt a little too familiar to the late collapses against Kansas City and CSUN. The Aggies didn’t really seem to feel the same about that situation, though.
“I don’t think that we were really feeling that adversity,” Heaton said. “There might have been signs but that’s just gonna be basketball. I feel like we were still very calm and we knew that we had this game and we’re gonna have setbacks.”
Heaton certainly proved she wasn’t fazed, as it was her scoring that pushed Utah State back to a double-digit advantage. Right after that 6:16 mark, with the lead down to eight, the junior forward scored six straight points, making it 61-47 with under four minutes to play.
“I just wanted to get those points up,” Heaton said. “I don’t even know what the score was at that point, but I just knew we needed some buckets and we needed some more momentum.”
Heaton, who was making her first start of the season, scored seven of her team-high 19 points in the fourth quarter alone. She also had five rebounds, five blocks and four assists. The late-game leader role is one Heaton has stepped into nicely. She took a leading role late in the first two games as well, playing the closing minutes despite not being a starter. Now she’s moved into the starting five and is clearly one of the key leaders for the team.
Cheyenne Stubbs ended up second on the team in scoring with 12. Two other Aggies, Elise Livingston and Mia Tarver, were on the brink of double-digit scoring with nine points apiece.
Finally getting a win was a huge step for the Aggies, whose struggles in recent seasons is well-documented. The first step for what is hoped to be a full rebuild under Brooks had to start somewhere.
“Today, this game was just about trying to find a way to win,” Brooks said. “You got to get one before you start building and stacking wins. So we got one. Still have a lot to clean up.”
A win is also huge because of the long, long road trip Utah State is about to embark on. The next home game will not be for another month — Dec. 18 against UC Riverside. In between are eight games away from home, six true road games and a pair of neutral site games. These games will also feature some of the toughest matchups on the calendar, including Colorado and the current No. 12 team in the country Ohio State.
