Dec. 20, 2008

Final Stats | Photo Gallery

LOGAN, Utah - A 10-0 spurt put Utah State ahead early and the Aggies never relinquished the lead, beating Southern Utah, 52-37, in a women's basketball Beehive state battle Saturday night at the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum.

With its largest victory of the season, USU improved to 5-5 overall, while SUU falls to 4-7. The Aggies have beaten the Thunderbirds in the last two meetings.

USU finished home non-conference action with a 4-3 action.

It was a balanced scoring attack for Utah State as senior guard Ana Pares netted a game-high 10 points, the only player in double-figures for either team. Junior forward Nicole Johnson tied a season-high with nine points to go with a team-leading seven rebounds, while senior guard Danyelle Snelgro added seven points. Snelgro and sophomore guard Alice Coddington each dished out six assists, a new season-high for Snelgro as well as swiping a season-high five steals. Johnson also added three blocks.

Southern Utah was led by Challis Pascucci's nine points and a game-high 13 rebounds, while Anne Westwood-Higbee and Cassie Platt tossed in seven points each.

Utah State trailed 5-0 in the early going before rallying with a 10-0 spurt, as Johnson and Pares hit two baskets each in the rally, and the Aggies never trailed again. USU pushed its lead to 13 at 25-12 with 3:34 remaining on a pair of free throws from Johnson and the home team led 27-19 at halftime, just the third time this season that USU has led at the break, improving to 2-1 when doing so.

Southern Utah closed to 32-31 with 13:19 left on a 7-0 run, capped by a three-pointer by Caitlyn Sears. However, the Aggies countered with an 11-2 run, finished by a Pares trey to put USU back in control at 43-33 with 9:13 on the clock and the Thunderbirds didn't threaten again. Coddington gave the Aggies their largest lead of the game at 52-36 with 30 ticks left.

USU had a 48-34 rebounding advantage, including a season-high 27 offensive rebounds which led to a 15-5 second-chance edge.

The Aggies shot 27.4 percent (17-of-62) from the floor, including 2-of-15 (13.3 percent) from three-point range and were 16-of-25 (64.0 percent) at the free throw line. The Thunderbirds were 14-of-40 (35.0 percent) field goal shooting, as well as 4-of-11 (36.4 percent) behind the arc and a paltry 38.5 percent (5-of-13) at the charity stripe.

Utah State swiped a season-high 16 steals, as the Aggie defense forced a season-high 27 turnovers by SUU.

USU concludes its 2008 action at another in-state foe, heading to Ogden, Utah to take on Weber State on Monday, Dec. 22 in a Noon tip-off.

All Utah State games can be heard on KLGN (1390 AM) in Logan with Evan Nyman calling the play-by-play and Ashley Rutledge providing color commentary for home games. They can also be heard on the web by going to the Utah State Athletics home page at www.UtahStateAggies.com.