LAS VEGAS — In a game of 146 shots, it takes one to win.

One inbound, one dribble, one shuffle and Madelyn Bragg banked a layup as the backboard lit up with red. Even as she looked up at the big screen for the replay, Colorado State women’s basketball had counted it, already celebrating its 61-59 comeback victory.

While Grand Canyon looked like the clear top dog through the first half of Sunday’s quarterfinals match, the Rams ignited a comeback off the heels of Lexus Bargesser’s team-high 19 points and performances from Kloe Froebe and Brooke Carlson. But in another signature defensive-focused battle, the rest of the team leaned on those three for 80% of its total points.

For a sophomore who plays above her size, Froebe looked like a veteran down the stretch.

“That’s what Chloe does, though,” Bragg said. “I mean, she’s a scrapper. We’ve seen it all year. She does the right thing when it’s needed. I’m really proud of her. I’m really proud of all of our guards, honestly, because I don’t get in the position to make that shot if our guards don’t go on that run down the stretch when it really mattered.”

The young backcourt duo of Froebe and Carlson continue to impress in their second seasons, with each scoring 15 points and generating spark in the second half.

What head coach Ryun Williams said to the team at halftime, down 29-21, seemed to help provide a boost in intensity and while guiding the Rams to some key defensive adjustments. And while CSU didn’t have a huge third quarter as it has typically did in the regular season, Carlson’s nine points and three rebounds came with haste and purpose.

For most of the first half, though, the game had very little rhythm to it. Possessions stretched longer than either team probably wanted, with both defenses crowding the paint and forcing the ball back outside. When shots did come, they often came late.

And when they did come open, they often didn’t go in.

And while the Rams and Lopes each shot 20% from three, CSU moved the ball well at times early, swinging it side to side until someone found space along the arc. But the results kept bouncing away.

Meanwhile the Lopes kept finding ways to pressure the Rams into uncomfortable spots. They pushed CSU’s guards further from the top of their offense, crowded Bragg inside and forced the Rams to reset possessions more often than they usually do.

“(I) tip my cap to Grand Canyon,” Williams said. “I thought they were exceptional tonight. I mean, they had us sped up a lot of the evening and were quite disruptive. But (I am) really proud of our basketball team for having a competitive character, to find a way to win that sucker, because it didn’t look good for a lot of the night.”

The numbers coming into the game hinted that something like that could happen.

CSU entered the quarterfinal allowing just 55 points per game while holding opponents to barely over 35% shooting. And while the Lopes only managed to sink 33% of its shots Sunday, GCU had its own defensive streak going, holding its previous five opponents to just over 50 points per game.

For long stretches, the night it looked like those two simply collided.

By halftime the Rams had gone scoreless for the final 3:43 of the second quarter, missing their final four field goal attempts as GCU stretched the lead to eight. The Lopes had taken advantage of a few trips to the free throw line and a couple timely outside shots, but mostly they had just stayed steady while CSU searched for some kind of rhythm.

“They came out way more aggressive than I think we were expecting,” Bragg said. “The ball pressure early on was a little jarring. But, I mean, we have six seniors on our team; we know how to perform. And after the third quarter, really we adjusted. My talk at halftime was, ‘We need to screen for each other. We need to help each other out.’”

The start of the third quarter didn’t immediately change the game, but it started to slow things down in CSU’s favor. Carlson’s run gave the Rams something they hadn’t had much of earlier in the night: momentum.

At the same time, Froebe kept finding ways to stay involved in possessions, whether it was by pushing the ball up the floor, attacking the lane or simply keeping plays alive long enough for CSU to reset.

By the time the fourth quarter began, the Rams were still trailing but the game had started to feel different.

“It’s really nice to get the contribution offensively, the balance that we got tonight,” Williams said. “We needed stops in order to get out and run. I thought that was a key, especially in that fourth quarter; we strung some stops together, and we really got out in the push.”

Those stops came quickly once the final quarter started.

GCU began working deeper into the shot clock as CSU tightened its rotations defensively, forcing a few rushed attempts that opened the door for the Rams to run in transition. Bargesser pushed the ball up the floor whenever she could, displaying yet again the talent which propelled her to MW Newcomer of the Year and the top of nearly every major statistical category for the Rams.

Slowly, the gap disappeared.

And just when it seemed the Rams had taken control, the Lopes found one more answer of their own. A lob inside to Julianna LaMendola tied the game again with only seconds left, setting up one final possession for CSU with 2.2 seconds remaining.

“I want to be the one making that pass at the at the end of the game,” Bargesser said. “I feel like mine and (Bragg’s) connectedness throughout the season has gotten so good and so much better throughout the season. And I know that wherever I throw at Maddie, she’s pretty much going to grab the ball.”

The play itself wasn’t super complicated.

The pass came in from Bargesser and Bragg gathered it near the block before taking a quick shuffle toward the glass. For a split second the relatively crowdy Lopes crowd in the arena waited as the shot left her hands and the backboard lights flashed red.

Then everyone looked up for the replay, confirmation, game.

In a game where both teams combined for 146 shots, most of them contested and many of them missed, the Rams only needed the last one.

But they might need one more in the semifinals against MW No. 2 UNLV who just handily beat Fresno State.

“Both teams have kids that can get their chin to the rim, and and they want to do that,” Williams said. “So, it’s hard to keep that ball in front of you sometimes, but they were aggressive; we were aggressive, and (we) just happened to make one more play than them tonight.”

Reach Michael Hovey at sports@collegian.com or on social media @michaelfhovey.

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