San Diego State women stun top-seeded UNLV, advance to MW title game – San Diego Union-Tribune
San Diego State advanced to the championship game of the Mountain West Women’s Basketball Tournament by defeating top-seeded UNLV 71-59 Tuesday night in Las Vegas.
The fourth-seeded Aztecs (24-9) will play the winner of Tuesday night’s late Wyoming-Fresno State game at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday for an automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament. The game will be telecast on the CBS Sports Network.
In a rematch of the 2024 Mountain West championship game won by UNLV, the Aztecs became the first team to beat the Lady Rebels (24-7) twice in the same season since 2021.
“I’m just really proud of our girls,” San Diego State coach Stacie Terry-Hutson said. “We came in with a game plan. I thought we executed it really, really well.
“UNLV is a really good team that has dominated the Mountain West for so long. We knew it was going to take an all-out effort.”
For the second straight night, the Aztecs used a scoring run to build a double-digit lead.
After trailing 10-9 at the end of the first quarter, the Aztecs took the lead for good at 16-13 on a 3-point jumper by Kaelyn Hamilton with 7 ¼ minutes to go to intermission.
The Aztecs then scored the final 11 points of the first half to take a 33-20 lead into the break. The run began on a 3-point shot by freshman guard Naomi Panganiban with 3:18 to go and ended on another 3-pointer by Panganiban with 25 seconds to play. The Aztecs outscored UNLV 24-10 in the second quarter.
The Aztecs took control of Monday’s 63-53 win over New Mexico by scoring the first 12 points of the third quarter to come out of a 33-33 tie at the break.
Point guard Veronica Sheffey led the Aztecs with 15 points. Panganiban scored 14 points while Kim Villalobos had 11 points and a team-leading eight rebounds. Adryana Quezada and Jazlen Green both finished with 10 points.
Green and Hamilton both came off the bench to hit key 3-pointers in the decisive second quarter. Panganiban had eight points in the quarter while Sheffey and Villalobos each hit two baskets.
“I’ve said this all year: every night somebody different has been stepping up for us this season,” said Terry-Hutson. “It’s been our superpower. We’re very deep. We have a lot of people who can shoot the ball and contribute in other ways.”
“We came in here taking everything personally,” said Panganiban. “Our defense really helped our offense.”
The Aztecs led by as many as 16 in the fourth quarter. But UNLV’s press reduced the deficit to seven at 57-50 with 2:06 to play before the winners stopped the rally by beating the press for late layups by Cali Clark and Sheffey.
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