Rams fall in Saturday afternoon contest at Fresno State, 56-45

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FRESNO, Calif. – The Colorado State women's basketball team fell to the Fresno State Bulldogs, 56-45, in a Mountain West contest at the Save Mart Center on Saturday afternoon.

Colorado State (10-5, 2-2 MW) was led offensively by freshman guard Grace Colaivalu, who scored a team-high 18 points on 7-for-10 shooting. Senior guard Stine Austgulen joined her in double figures, finishing the game with 11 points. Eight players scored for the Rams overall. Senior forward Veronika Mirkovic paced the Rams in rebounding with seven. Fresno State's Candice White led all scorers with 24 points and added 12 rebounds.

Despite leading by as many as four points in the second quarter, Colorado State ended the first half tied with Fresno State at 22 points apiece. Its four-point lead came at 22-18 with 5:55 left in the first half, but the Rams did not score for the remainder of the period, heading to halftime with a streak of eight consecutive missed field goals.

That scoring drought continued into the third quarter, as Colorado State missed three more shots before an Austgulen made three-pointer at the 7:41 mark. However, White and Aly Gamez responded with a layup and three, respectively, to take a five-point lead at 30-25. The Bulldogs never relinquished the lead from there, leading for the final 17:25 and for 19:48 overall.

Fresno State extended its lead to double digits at 51-41 just under the midway point in the fourth quarter. After a Bulldog free throw, Austgulen cut the lead to single digits at 52-44 with 1:53 to go, but the Rams closed the game shooting 1-for-7 and scored just once more on a free throw before the final score. For the game, CSU was outshot 36 percent to 31 percent. Part of that shooting total was caused by a 5-for-27 (19 percent) performance from beyond the three-point stripe.

IN THEIR WORDS
Colorado State head coach Ryun Williams
"Our defense was outstanding all day. (Candice) White's an outstanding player, but you go on the road and hold somebody to 22 points in a half, you're doing something right. And they were playing aggressive offensively. Defensively, really pleased with what we did. It was the other end of the floor where we were inconsistent – just not very good shot-making to say the least."

On the Rams' three-point shooting:
"We got a lot of good looks at the three-ball. Quite frankly what we said to the kids in the locker room was that we shot too many of them. If you're having a bad shooting game, we need to find a different way to score. Our offense consists of other options. We can get the ball to the high post, the short corner – there are other places to attack that. But you have to move. You've got to be aware, be alert. We just really weren't locked in offensively."

NOTES
- Freshman guard Grace Colaivalu is averaging 22 points per game in Mountain West play, the most of any freshman in her first four career conference games under sixth-year head coach Ryun Williams.
- Colaivalu has now led the Rams in scoring in three of four Mountain West games this season.
- Saturday's game marked Colorado State's first loss on the road this season. CSU was previously 3-0 in away games this season.
- Colorado State had won its previous 14 games against Mountain West teams from the state of California before Saturday.

UP NEXT
The Colorado State women's basketball team returns to Fort Collins, Colo., next week for a pair of home Mountain West contests. The Rams host Utah State at 7 p.m. MT on Wednesday and Wyoming at 2 p.m. MT on Saturday.

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