By Zack Siedel – Spear Reporter | Djessira Diawara in midst of shooting a basket during the home matchup against Saint Mary’s on Dec. 4 (Photo by Iber Moreno – The Spear)
San Jose State women’s basketball (6-3) defeated St. Mary’s (4-4) 51-46 in a sloppy game on Wednesday night at home.
This game featured lots of turnovers, many missed shots, and unpleasant ball movement, but the Spartans ultimately got out with the victory.
Even with all of the lackluster play, SJSU’s main eye-opener was the rebounding as it out-rebounded St. Mary’s 51-28.
Spartans’ forward Djessira Diawara led the scoring charge in this low-scoring affair with 14 points on a 7-13 shooting night with 10 rebounds, giving herself a double-double at game’s end.
“I think my team did a pretty good job finding me. We’re about chemistry, and my chemistry with my teammates is getting better and I think they do a really good job at finding me,” Diawara said.
Offensive rebounding was a huge part of SJSU’s victory as the Spartans finished with 19.
Some of these rebounds led to second-chance points opportunities in which SJSU had 15.
Sofia Kelemeni was the main glass cleaner in the game for the Spartans with 11 rebounds and seven of them being on offense.
Both Kelemeni and Diawara’s double-digit rebounding totals were a driving force into getting more opportunities to score, even in a low-scoring game.
“We had to really box out. Any time a team plays a lot of zone, it’s difficult to rebound out of zone. So we really emphasize crashing the offensive boards and as you can see, we missed enough shots to get some rebounds as well,” SJSU head coach April Phillips said.
Both teams struggled heavily from the floor, with St. Mary’s only making 29.1% of its shots on the night and SJSU made 33.9%.
The Spartans also had many open looks from three point-range but could not capitalize on the majority of those looks with a 21.1% night from beyond the arc on 4-19 shooting.
Half of those threes came from Sydni Summers who went 2-5 from three.
“I think getting extra shots up in the gym as well as being more confident in our shot,” Summers said. “Sometimes we down our shot a little bit when we start missing but that’s really about it. It’s just about getting in the gym getting more extra shots so we can be more confident.”
SJSU went on to lose 82-71 in its next game on Sunday against Loyola Marymount.
