otoWyoming senior Megan McGuffey drives past San Diego State's Paris Johnson on Sunday.
Wyoming-SDSU box score
By Richard Anderson
Wyoming Sports.org
After struggling for much of the season at home, the Wyoming Cowgirls are finding a little home-court magic.
After losing six of their first 10 games this season in the Arena-Auditorium, the Cowgirls won their second straight in the A-A with another nail-biter, edging San Diego State 64-61 on Sunday.
“We have two home wins in a row," Wyoming senior Megan McGuffey said. "We’re used to winning here, so hopefully we can continue that and finish up with two more wins. These have been two huge wins for us. They are two really great teams in our conference. Also, it has been fun to play here and get our crowd back into it, so it feels like the old Dome of Doom.”
While the Cowgirls are just fighting to get back up in the middle of the Mountain West Conference standings, the loss hurt San Diego State’s chances for the regular-season title, as the Aztecs, 17-6 overall, fell two games behind league-leading Utah at 8-3 in the MWC.
“There are a lot of smiling faces with Wyoming fans, our players and coaching staff,” Wyoming head coach Joe Legerski said. “We always talk about playing hard for 40 minutes, scrambling for the ball, and I think we’ve been doing that the last month. We demonstrated a great deal of effort to have 19 offensive rebounds, which was key in giving us second opportunities at the basket Hillary Carlson really stepped up with her 18 points, nine rebounds and her two 3-point shots. We just found a way to win at the end, which was important.”
In Wyoming's last home game, the Cowgirls hit a last-second shot to beat New Mexico 52-50. The Cowgirls are getting more of that feeling that saw them lose just five times at home in the previous three years.
“That’s an excellent team that we played today,” Legerski said. “The crowd got into it – 3,500 fans here – I keep telling our players that they have to keep believing, because our fans do, they keep showing up. They kept coming even when we had a tough January. To be able to get this victory, it really shows a great magnitude with our fans leading this group. This young group just keeps learning.”
The Aztecs came into Sunday's game just one game behind the Utes, after handing Utah its first league loss earlier in the week. that makes the win extra special, McGuffey said.
"This was just a great win for us," McGuffey said. "We're sitting, kind of in the back of the pack now and we feel that we could have won some games early on that we lost. We're just excited that we are starting to pull out these league wins."
Trailing 32-29 at halftime, the Cowgirls were still down by four with 6:22 left, but used a layup by freshman Kristen Scheffler, two free throws by freshman Emma Langford and a layup by McGuffey to regain the lead at 62-60 with two minutes remaining. The Cowgirls never trailed again, but the game came down to the final possessions.
With Wyoming leading 63-61, San Diego State’s Jene Morris missed a 3-pointer with 35 seconds left. After the rebound, the Cowgirls worked the shot clock and Randi Richardson missed a running floater in the lane, but Langford grabbed the offensive rebound with 1.5 seconds left. She was fouled and made 1-of-2 free throws to close the scoring. The Aztecs’ Quenese Davis badly missed an off-balanced 40-foot 3-point attempt at the buzzer.
Carlson led the Cowgirls with 18 points, with Scheffler adding 11 points for Wyoming, 12-11, 4-6. The Cowgirls stayed in the game despite turning the ball over 18 times and shooting just 34 percent from the field. Wyoming out-rebounded San Diego State 44-25 and grabbed 19 offensive rebounds for 11 second-chance points.
Paris Johnson led San Diego State with 15 points, followed by Jene Morris with 13 and Coco Davis with 10.
"Without question, the tougher and more competitive team won," San Diego State coach Beth Burns said. "Our defense was the reason Wyoming made a run in the second half."
Wyoming returns to the road, as they face UNLV Wednesday in Las Vegas and TCU Saturday in Fort Worth, Texas.
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