Women’s Basketball Falls in Regular Season Finale at San Diego State

Box Score | Mountain West Tournament Bracket

SAN DIEGO, Calif. – It was a tale of two halves for the Air Force women's basketball team on Tuesday evening, as the Falcons fell 60-51 at San Diego State.

Sophomore Madison Smith closed the night tying a game high with 17 points on 7-14 FG and 3-5 from three-point range, while adding seven rebounds; Kamri Heath and Kayla Pilson followed up with eight apiece.

It was a hot start offensively for the Falcons through the first quarter, as Air Force shot 60 percent from the field, battling with an SDSU squad which matched the Falcons' efforts throughout the opening frame.

At 18-17 SDSU with 1.9 seconds to go in the first and the Falcons in possession, sophomore Taylor Britt's inbounds pass to Nikki McDonald found Britt out along the right baseline, taking a jumper from just inside the arc to beat the buzzer and give the Falcons a 19-18 lead heading into the second.

Smith, with seven points in the first quarter, took control of the game heading into the second, scoring seven more inside of the opening four minutes to push a five-point lead.

Down the final minutes of the half, Air Force scoring ground to a halt, not scoring for nearly a four-minute stretch before Britt scored her final points, beating the shot clock along the right wing on the Falcons' final possession, giving the Falcons a 34-28 lead to close the first half.

After a 5-0 jolt to start the second half behind Smith's third three-pointer of the evening and a Heath jumper , SDSU put up a rapid seven points inside the eighth minute, cutting the Air Force lead to 39-35.

From there, the Aztecs continued to crawl their way back before a Sophia Ramos three-pointer at 2:22 tied the game before an Asia Avinger basket at the end-of-quarter buzzer awarded SDSU a 47-45 lead which they would not give up for the remainder of the contest.

SDSU pushed its lead, allowing only six points from the Falcons in the final quarter on the way to a 60-51 win. After allowing only five turnovers in the first half turn into four points for SDSU, the Aztecs managed to turn over Air Force 11 times in the second half on the way to 17 points created.

Turning the Page
With the bracket set, seven-seed Air Force is destined for a first-round matchup in Las Vegas with ten-seed San Jose State at 5:30 p.m. MT at the Thomas and Mack Center on Sunday, March 5. The winner of the contest will advance to face Wyoming the following Monday at 6 p.m. MT

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