Cold-Shooting Rams Knocked out of Tourney

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Oct 18

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vs Weber State

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vs Long Beach State

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at Gonzaga

LAS VEGAS – The opening night of the season was the worst the team had shot all season. It had been the only time Ryun Williams' squad failed to hit at least 30 percent of their shots.

Monday was an inconvenient time to almost match it.

Fresno State came out hot, which on most nights wouldn't be critical, but Colorado State's women never found the range in Monday's quarterfinal matchup with Fresno State, falling to the Bulldogs 52-50 to end the season at 22-11.

It did match the lowest point total of the year. Again, from the first outing of the season against San Francisco. And that was a win.

"It doesn't take much to get some feels going in this game and in this tournament. You play with a different energy," Williams said. "We could never get that going. We were kind of climbing that mountain made of sand it felt like for four quarters."

The Bulldogs made their first three shots of the game – all 3s – two coming from Mariah Elohim. One of the Rams' defensive goals was to keep track of Fresno State's perimeter shooters, but they didn't in the first half as the Bulldogs hit 7-of-14 from deep in the first 20 minutes, the shots coming from five different players.

It was a lead the Rams could never overcome, never holding a lead. While they improved defensively, Colorado State never shot well enough to catch up, finishing at 29.8 percent from the field, just 21.4 percent from behind the arc – again, the second lowest percentage of the season (BYU, 20 percent).

"It's pretty hard if we can't respond so early and we shoot as bad as we did in the first half today, it's really hard to come back from that start," Marta Leimane said. "They played really well. We should have started better.

"We shot bad the first half, then we just couldn't find that rhythm, I'd say. I don't know. We just didn't make those shots today."

Fresno State built up as much as a 12-point lead in the first quarter, and there were a handful of times the Rams made a major push to cut it down to four. There were two instances where it was just two. Each time, the Bulldogs had a response to regain a bit of control, much of the damage done by Mia Jacobs.

Colorado State held her in check in the only meeting earlier this season, but she responded with a 20-point, 18-rebound night to pace her team. She hit critical shots, including a three-point play in the fourth to regain some control, the extra damage coming when it resulted in Hannah Ronsiek's fifth foul of the game with 3:01 remaining in the game.

"We knew she was going to be a more determined scorer and really look to get herself involved. That was not a surprise to us," Williams said. "And she's very good. She's very good. She's very strong, very skilled. She's gonna get some, but I think we created the easy ones for her that we didn't do in Fort Collins. "

Emma Ronsiek led the Rams with 17 points, but it came on a tough night from the field. Even still, it was a pretty determined performance from the transfer, who went on a personal five-point run at one point to cut the lead to four.

She transferred from Creighton after a stellar four-year career for one reason, which was to play with her younger sister one more time. It wasn't the ending the two had hoped for, but it was a season they'll forever cherish, something one tough loss could never take away.

"I'd never say this to her face – she's just my best friend. We have an absolute blast together," Emma said. "A lot of the reason was basketball, just being able to share the floor with her again because Covid cut my senior year of high school short – that felt like forever ago. Just living with her, being able to meet new people; she's the social butterfly and I'm a little bit more reserved, shockingly, for those who know her.

"Yeah, it was everything to me and I think she'll be a little coy too, but I think it was also everything to her."

As frustrating as most of the night was, there were glimmers of hope throughout. Hannah Simental hit a 3-pointer with 10 seconds remaining to make it a two-point game. But as Fresno State consistently did, they made the play to make a difference – Elohim hit a pair of free throws to make it a two-possession game.

It was bad timing to not be locked in defensively at the start. Even harder when you take your best shot and you can't find the net.

"We were way out of synch. You let Jacobs see it go in a few times, you let (Elohim) see it go in a few times, and they got really aggressive," Williams said. "They played with a different level of intensity and belief, and we created that for them by our mistakes. Give them credit. They knocked that down. They went on that 3-point barrage early and we couldn't recover from it."

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