The Rams caught fire early on, and Long Beach State could not extinguish the flames.
After a big season opening win against Weber State earlier in the week, Colorado State women’s basketball carried that momentum into Sunday, defeating LBSU 73-34 in convincing fashion.
Lexus Bargesser led the way for CSU with 17 points on 6-of-9 shooting, with Lexi Deden checking in second on the team in scoring with 11 points alongside seven rebounds.
The Rams started the game with suffocating defense, holding LBSU to only four points in the first quarter. From then, they were able to create points off turnovers, and in transition, opened up a big early lead through a 24-4 first quarter run.
“We knew that they wanted to put it on the floor more than shoot it,” Hannah Ronsiek said. “So we were able to stay in the gaps, and we just scouted them really well and that starts with the coaches. We just knew what they wanted to do and that kind of blew up their offense.”
LBSU did not have a good day shooting from the field, going only 23% overall and 26% from 3 and limiting its chances of victory early on.
The Rams, on the other hand, made sure to get into their offensive rhythm early, finding their bigs in the paint and waiting for the best shot possible on each given possession.
“I thought (our shot selection) was awesome,” coach Ryun Williams said. “The ball was moving, we made the extra pass — we call that good to great — and so we found some really good looks from really good shooters. … I thought the execution was really good.”
CSU had five players in double digits to even out the scoring outputs — spanning from its bigs to its guards.
Madelyn Bragg, McKenna Murphy and Ronsiek all had 10 points apiece, with Bragg doing her scoring in just 15 minutes of action — while Murphy and Ronsiek each hit two 3’s.
“I think we’ll be fairly happy with the film and how we spread the wealth around,” Williams said. “I like our depth, and each game calls for something different, and I thought everybody was really ready to go — and where it really showed was on the defensive end.”
The Rams are a team that protects the ball at an outstanding rate and that continued Sunday, winning the turnover battle by committing only seven, while forcing 24 from LBSU — most of which were forced from swiping the ball in driving lanes and forcing errant passes.
“We were all very locked in on our game plan, on the floor, off the floor,” Bargesser said. “That was a good step in the right direction.”
While CSU was stellar on the defensive end, it did the necessary work on the offensive end to maintain an early lead throughout the game.
Despite middling shooting, the Rams’ ball movement kept the LBSU defense on their heels and they were able to get the shots they wanted at ease.
“We got 26 bench points, we had 31 the other night,” Williams said. “We’ve got some production up and down that bench and the entire roster. We haven’t fired it all together yet, it just hasn’t happened yet on the offensive end, but it’s coming.”
Now starting the season 2-0 with both wins coming in dominant fashion at home, the Rams prepare for their first road matchup against Gonzaga Nov. 13.
GU awaits as a tough task for the Rams, as the Bulldogs visited Moby Arena last year in December and were defeated in a close battle ending with a Brooke Carlson game-winner.
“(Gonzaga)’s always really good,” Williams said. “Our message to our team is that we play the game, we compete against the game. Yeah, Long Beach was the opponent, Weber was the opponent, but there’s always a right way to do things, from a focus standpoint, an intensity standpoint, to an execution standpoint.
“We preach that waters are only going to get deeper; and we’re going into the deep end on Thursday. … There’s not a huge margin for error when you go into places like that.”
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Reach Devin Imsirpasic at sports@collegian.com or on Twitter at @DImsirpasic.
