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Fresno State’s dreams of a perfect Mountain West regular season were shattered Wednesday night by hot-shooting Air Force in Colorado Springs.
The Falcons received 22 points apiece from junior Kaelin Immel and sophomore Riley Snyder en route to an 88-65 women’s basketball victory over the conference champion Bulldogs.
Surrendering more than 80 points for just the third time this season, the Bulldogs suffered their first conference loss and saw their 14-game winning streak snapped.
Air Force Totally Dominates Fresno State
Air Force (7-19, 5-10 Mountain West) dominated Fresno State (22-5, 15-1) in every phase. The Falcons led in rebounding (40-25), fast-break points (14-7), points in the paint (46-40), bench scoring (20-11), and second-chance scoring (14-4).
In contrast to Air Force, the Bulldogs struggled from beyond the 3-point arc, shooting just 19% (4 of 21). In addition, the Falcons limited Bulldogs star forward Maddi Utti to two points and forced four Utti turnovers.
“I can’t say that I didn’t see this coming, because I did,” Air Force coach Chris Gobrecht said of her squad. “They’ve really been figuring things out. You could see it with every single game.”
Cavinder Sisters 1-2 on Fresno State Freshman Scoring Chart
Haley Cavinder led the Bulldogs with 19 points and that enabled her to break Jaleesa Ross’ freshman school scoring record of 421 points. Cavinder now has 436 points.
Twin sister Hanna Cavinder had 15 points to also move past Ross on the freshman scoring list. She is at 427 points.
The boxscore is at this link.
Next Up
Fresno State returns home to face Nevada (14-12, 7-8) on Saturday. Tipoff is at 2 p.m.
The Mountain West standings are at this link.