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The No. 5-seeded Colorado State women’s basketball team advanced to the semifinals of the 2018 Mountain West Women’s Basketball Championship with a 71-55 victory over the No. 4-seeded Fresno State Bulldogs in the quarterfinals on Tuesday at the Thomas & Mack Center.
With the result, Colorado State (20-10) will face top-seeded Boise State (22-9) at 7:30 p.m. MT/6:30 p.m. PT in semifinal action on Wednesday. CSU was paced offensively by senior guards Hannah Tvrdy and Stine Austgulen, who tallied 15 points and 14 points, respectively. Tvrdy added eight rebounds to her line, while Austgulen corralled three boards with five assists. Guards Lore Devos and Sofie Tryggedsson joined the two seniors in double-digit scoring, pouring in 14 and 11 points, respectively.
The two teams played back-and-forth basketball over the first two quarters of Tuesday’s quarterfinal. Colorado State opened the action with 4-for-5 shooting, including a pair of Tryggedsson threes, to gain initial separation. Fresno State (16-14) hung with the Rams early, closing the early gap before the two teams played to six instances of a tied score and 12 first-half lead changes. Both teams scored exactly 15 points and 11 points in the first and second quarters, respectively, and went to halftime tied at 26 apiece.
CSU took the early upper hand in the third quarter, building a five-point lead before the Bulldogs tied the game for the 13th and final time at 33-33 with 6:07 left in the period. 21 seconds later, Austgulen broke the tie for good with a three-pointer, the first of four CSU threes to end the third. Behind that three-point shooting, the Rams went on a 14-4 run, taking a 47-37 advantage to the fourth quarter.
The Rams had 30:48 of lead time on Tuesday, and never led by fewer points than 10 from the beginning of the fourth quarter to the final buzzer. From a 50-40 CSU lead with 8:46 to go, the Rams got another three-pointer from Austgulen and back-to-back jumpers from Devos to power a 7-0 run and take a 57-40 advantage with 6:19 to play. Fresno State got as close as within 13 points with 2:51 remaining, but Devos responded with four straight points again to reestablish the 17-point lead before the final 71-55 result.