Well, that was exciting. How Fresno State women’s hoops secured a piece of Mountain West crown
The Fresno State women’s basketball team cut down their nets to celebrate a share of the Mountain West title on Wednesday before its largest home crowd of the season.
An announced crowd of 4,062 watched as Fresno State’s Maddi Utti scored a game-winning layup off an alley-oop pass with 2.8 seconds left that gave the Bulldogs a 78-76 win against San Jose State at the Save Mart Center.
“Maddi with her jumping ability just made it look easy, didn’t she?” Fresno State coach Jaime White said.
The Bulldogs (21-4, 14-0) now need just one more win among their final four games to secure an outright regular-season championship.
Fresno State, which has won 13 straight, became the first team throughout Division I play to claim its conference’s regular season title this season.
White drew up the perfect play to catch San Jose State offguard during the Bulldogs’ final possession.
Utti started outside of the 3-point line then motioned toward the basket, using a screen from guard Aly Gamez to free herself for the lob.
Teammate Bree Delaney came off the bench and provided the precision passing on the inbound, connecting with Utti for the uncontested layup.
Fresno State moved to 7-0 in games decided by no more than six points.
Utti finished with 16 points, 12 rebounds, four assists and three steals.
Freshman twins Haley and Hanna Cavinder added 21 and 20 points, respectively. Haley also chipped in 10 rebounds and seven assists.
San Jose State’s Tyra Whitehead led all scorers with 28 points and 12 rebounds.
Spartans teammates Megan Anderson and Danae Marquez, who both went to Clovis West High, scored nine and five points, respectively.
Fresno State led by as much as 12 points, achieved late in the first quarter.
The teams managed to change leads six times.
The Bulldogs entered the fourth up six points but found themselves trailing for the first time in the quarter with 3:27 remaining, down 69-67 after surrendering a 3-pointer.
Neither team would lead by more than two points the rest of the way.
Fresno State got two key layups from Wytalla Motta during the final 90 seconds to keep things close before Utti closed it out with her alley-oop basket.
This story was originally published February 12, 2020 at 10:28 PM.
