By Luke Johnson:
Senior point guard Dezz Ramos is 11 points away from becoming the fastest player to score 1,000 career points for San Jose State.
The record is currently held by Lora Alexander, who produced 1,000 career points within 55 games set in 1990. Ramos enters her 51st career game in an SJSU uniform Saturday as the team hosts New Mexico.
The two teams have one thing in common and that is that their last game was at UNLV. San Jose State pulled off an upset, 76-65, while New Mexico faltered, 61-52. It was also SJSU’s first road victory in the Mountain West Conference this season.
“We needed one,” said SJSU coach Jamie Craighead in a postgame interview. “We needed to get this monkey off our back and get this first road win.”
Craighead added that more importantly the win snapped a three-game losing streak for the Spartans (7-14, 4-5 MW). Coincidentally, the Lobos’ (12-10, 7-4 MW) loss to UNLV ended their three-game winning streak.
While Dezz Ramos is making a name for herself as a potential Mountain West player of the year candidate with a conference best 22.1 points per game, New Mexico’s junior point guard Cherise Beynon is also making her presence known with a conference leading 6.5 assists per game. She is also providing 15.9 points (fourth best) and two steals per game (third best).
One more victory for Craighead and she will have sole possession of the third most wins in SJSU history. She is tied with Karen Smith (1993-99) at 49 wins, and has a long way to go to reach the number one and two spots. Sharon Chatman (1977-86) brought SJSU 143 wins and Janice Richard (1999-2006) holds 93 wins. Craighead is in her fourth season as head coach.
San Jose State has traditionally fared poorly against New Mexico with an all-time record of 7-1 against the Lobos.
They face off for the ninth time Saturday at 2 p.m. in the Event Center.