Box Score A magical season comes to an end for the Colorado School of Mines as they fell 71-61 to Angelo State in the first round of the NCAA Division II Women's Basketball Tournament on Thursday, March 10 at the Rip Griffin Center on the campus of Lubbock Christian University.
Mines (21-7) got an incredible 21-point night from freshman Cassidy Budge and 19 from Elizabeth Tomon, but it wasn't enough against a formidable ASU (23-7) squad.
Against a high scoring Belles offense, the game opened right at the pace that Mines wanted with Elizabeth Tomon and Cassidy Budge hitting back-to-back three pointers to push the lead to 14-7 right before the first media timeout (4:12). Angelo State picked up the pace during the back part of the period though and eventually tied the game 16 to end the opening quarter.
The Belles continued that run into the second quarter as they reeled off 16 consecutive points in all before Budge hit her second three-ball at 5:38 to stop the bleeding. Now down 25-19, three pointers from Laura Tyree and Budge (third of the half) along with some gritty defense and rebounding left Mines only trailing 32-30 at the break.
The halftime break seemed to be to Mines' disadvantage as they fell behind 42-33 midway through the third period. Elizabeth Tomon refused to late the Orediggers fade away though as she scored 11 of the team's 14 points in the period to keep CSM in it.
Trailing 51-44 to start the final period, Mines once again fell behind the Belles, 58-48, by the final media timeout of the game (5:30). While Tomon and Budge tried to bring the Orediggers back, unfortunately, it wouldn't be enough this time as they fell by the final of 71-61.
Notables
- In a game where most of the stats were nearly identical, Mines lost the turnover (16-5) and free throw (22-7) battles which proved to be huge.
- ASU also scored 24 points on second chance opportunities compared to only six for CSM.
- Mines shot 34.4% for the game and held Angelo State to 30.1% which was nearly 13% off their season average.
- The Orediggers were particularly sharp from outside where they made 10 of them at a 47.6% clip.
- Six of the 10 made three balls came from Cassidy Budge who scored a season-high 21 points tonight to go along with eight rebounds. The six made three pointers were also a season-best for Budge.
- CSM outscored ASU 40-2 from players off the bench with 19 of them coming from Elizabeth Tomon. The sophomore made all three of her three-point attempts and just missed a double-double with nine rebounds.
- All 40 of Mines' bench points came from Budge and Tomon.
