{"id":46183,"date":"2025-11-10T07:03:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T07:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/46183\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T07:03:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T07:03:09","slug":"csu-womens-basketball-starts-strong-doesnt-look-back-in-win-over-long-beach-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/46183\/","title":{"rendered":"CSU women\u2019s basketball starts strong, doesn\u2019t look back in win over Long Beach State"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rams caught fire early on, and Long Beach State<\/a> could not extinguish the flames.<\/p>\n

After a big season opening win against Weber State<\/a> earlier in the week, Colorado State<\/a> women\u2019s basketball carried that momentum into Sunday, defeating LBSU 73-34 in convincing fashion.<\/p>\n

Lexus Bargesser<\/a> led the way for CSU with 17 points on 6-of-9 shooting, with Lexi Deden<\/a> checking in second on the team in scoring with 11 points alongside seven rebounds.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew that they wanted to put it on the floor more than shoot it,\u201d Hannah Ronsiek<\/a> said. \u201cSo 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought (our shot selection) was awesome,\u201d coach Ryun Williams<\/a> said. \u201cThe ball was moving, we made the extra pass \u2014 we call that good to great \u2014 and so we found some really good looks from really good shooters. \u2026 I thought the execution was really good.\u201d<\/p>\n

CSU had five players in double digits to even out the scoring outputs \u2014 spanning from its bigs to its guards.<\/p>\n

Madelyn Bragg<\/a>, McKenna Murphy<\/a> and Ronsiek all had 10 points apiece, with Bragg doing her scoring in just 15 minutes of action \u2014 while Murphy and Ronsiek each hit two 3\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ll be fairly happy with the film and how we spread the wealth around,\u201d Williams said. \u201cI like our depth, and each game calls for something different, and I thought everybody was really ready to go \u2014 and where it really showed was on the defensive end.\u201d<\/p>\n

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 \u2014 most of which were forced from swiping the ball in driving lanes and forcing errant passes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were all very locked in on our game plan, on the floor, off the floor,\u201d Bargesser said. \u201cThat was a good step in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Despite middling shooting, the Rams\u2019 ball movement kept the LBSU defense on their heels and they were able to get the shots they wanted at ease.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got 26 bench points, we had 31 the other night,\u201d Williams said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got some production up and down that bench and the entire roster. We haven\u2019t fired it all together yet, it just hasn\u2019t happened yet on the offensive end, but it\u2019s coming.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/a> Nov. 13.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> game-winner.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Gonzaga)\u2019s always really good,\u201d Williams said. \u201cOur 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\u2019s always a right way to do things, from a focus standpoint, an intensity standpoint, to an execution standpoint.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe preach that waters are only going to get deeper; and we\u2019re going into the deep end on Thursday. \u2026 There\u2019s not a huge margin for error when you go into places like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Interested in more sports content? Sign up for Ram Report\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0for weekly CSU sports updates!<\/p>\n

Reach Devin Imsirpasic at sports@collegian.com<\/a> or on Twitter at @DImsirpasic<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rams caught fire early on, and Long Beach State could not extinguish the flames. After a big…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-46183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}