By C.J. Peterson — Staff Writer
Winning three of its last four games, the San Jose State women’s basketball team arrived in Wyoming hoping to make up some ground in the conference standings.
Just six days ahead of the Mountain West Women’s Basketball Championship, the Spartans’ (5-23, 4-13 MW) aspirations were stunted thanks to a 85-56 loss to the Cowgirls (20-6, 13-4 MW) at Arena-Auditorium.
They now sit as the No. 10 seed, half a game behind Air Force for No. 9.
In their final road game of the season, the Spartans came out flat against the hosting Cowgirls.
With lazy interior passing and poor ball placement, SJSU gave up seven first-quarter turnovers — six of which were steals for Wyoming, nearly eclipsing its season average of 7.3 within the first 10 minutes of play.
By halftime, San Jose State would be down 37-30 after shooting 42 percent from the floor.
Another issue that contributed to the deficit was that the Spartans shot 3-for-12 from distance. Not to mention, nearly half of their shots were from beyond the arc.
To open the third, Spartans junior guard Fieme’a Hafoka hit the first basket of the second half for SJSU closing the gap to five points.
Unfortunately for the Spartans, that would be the closest the game would get as the Cowgirls ripped off a 9-2 run. The run was spearheaded by Wyoming senior Marta Gomez, who scored eight straight to balloon the Cowgirls’ lead to as large as 21 in the quarter.
Gomez finished the night with 21 points in 29 minutes worth of play. She single-handedly put the game away for Wyoming with 17 of those points in the third quarter.
San Jose State would be unable to crawl out of the 20-plus point hole in the fourth, resulting in their 13th conference loss of the season.
For their final game of the 2018-19 regular season, the Spartans will host Fresno State on Thursday at 7 p.m. in the Event Center. Senior Andrea Kohlhaas will be honored for senior night prior to tip-off.
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