By Jose Trujillo (@jAy_Ay_T )
The San Jose State women’s basketball team (3-8) will head into the holiday break on a high note after an exciting 89-87 overtime win against the Southern Oregon Raiders (11-2) Wednesday night in The Event Center.
While the Spartans came out on top, they’ll be the first to tell you this was not a performance they would like to repeat.
This is because if you look at the box score, there is one glaring number for San Jose State: 40.
The Spartans turned the ball over 40 times on the night, something head coach Jamie Craighead is still scratching her head over.
“It looked like we were trying to go too fast,” said Craighead. “I don’t think I have ever been a part of a team that has turned the ball over 40 times … we looked like a deer in headlights.”
The inability to protect the rock was the lone reason the visiting Raiders clawed their way back after being down by as many as 18.
The Spartans opened the game on fire shooting 65 percent from the field on their way to a 50 point first half, their second highest scoring half of the season.
But things quickly fell apart for the Spartans in the second half.
After scoring 30 in the second quarter, SJSU was iced for just 29 points combined in quarters three and four. In the third quarter alone, the Spartans committed two more turnovers than points (15-13).
Not until the overtime period did the Spartans seem settle down and resemble the team folks saw in the first half.
With 48 seconds left, SOU guard Ariel Augustine nailed a jumper to tie the game at 87.
After back-to-back misses by both teams, the clock read 1.6 seconds and SJSU inbounded from its side of the floor.
Fieme’a Hafoka found Cyndi Lewis from out of bounds down low for the game-winning layup.
“It was, honestly a nice pass, kind of drifted a little bit,” Craighead said. Cyd [Cyndi Lewis] caught it with three [players] around her, and just did what she had to do, jump up and finish it.”
It was a great way to finish non-conference play. For the Spartans, senior guard Myzhanique Ladd had strong performance finishing with 18 points and 8 rebounds.
Sophomore guard Taylor Turney scored 12 points and recorded 6 assists, but also had 10 turnovers.
Coming off the bench, forward Hallie Gennett provided some instant offense hitting 4-6 field goal attempts, sinking three 3’s.
The Spartans are now off for seven days before opening Mountain West play at home against Utah State Dec. 28.