FORT COLLINS — Kyle Jorgensen scored a career-high 25 points and the Colorado State Rams cruised to a 97-74 victory over Omaha on Sunday at Moby Arena.
The win was the second in as many games for the Rams this season as they improved to 2-0 under first-year head coach Ali Farokhmanesh. They also topped 90 points for the second straight game.
Jorgensen’s 25 points led the team and was a career-high for the second game in a row for the sophomore forward. He had 15 on Monday against Incarnate Word.
“It’s giving me the mindset to just keep going,” Jorgensen said of his last two games. “A lot of people would have these two performances and maybe relax a little bit and settle and be OK with these two performances. ,,, I don’t know if I’m going to keep stacking career highs like this, but I just want to keep playing great game after great game after great game.”
Coming out of halftime against the Mavericks, the Rams led by 10 points and extended their advantage to 14 on a 3-pointer by Brandon Rechsteiner that made it 57-43 with 16:46 left in the game.
The Mavericks went on a 9-0 run and cut the CSU lead down to five at 57-52 with 14:39 remaining, but the Rams answered with a 14-4 run and took their largest lead to that point at 71-56 after a three-point play by Devin Muniz with 10:56 remaining in the contest.
Omaha was never able to cut the CSU lead to under 10 points again. The Rams took their largest lead of the game at 94-73 on Jorgensen’s last field goal of the game with 1:17 remaining.
In addition to Jorgensen’s 25 points, Josh Pascarelli added 15 and Carey Booth and Augustinas Kiudalas each had 13. For the second straight game, at least nine players scored for the Rams.
“We don’t necessarily have to rely on one person to carry us through a game,” Farokhmanesh said. “That’s the beauty of this team is every night’s going to be someone different.”
The teams played through a highly contested and high scoring first half. There were 10 lead changes and two ties in the first 20 minutes of play.
A layup by Kiudulas gave CSU an 18-17 lead with 12:40 left in the first half and the Rams never trailed again before the break.
CSU’s largest lead of the first half came when Jorgensen hit a 3-pointer to give the Rams a 46-35 advantage with 1:16 remaining before halftime.
Then, after the Mavericks made a basket to cut the CSU lead to 46-37, Jorgensen hit a jumper in the paint at the buzzer to send the Rams into the locker room with a 10-point lead at 48-38.
Jorgensen finished the first half with 10 points. Pascarelli led the team with 11 points in the first 20 minutes. Kiudulas also had 10 at the break.
CSU will be back in action Wednesday when the Rams host Cal Poly at 7 p.m. at Moby Arena.
CSU women rout Long Beach State
Colorado State’s women’s team also improved to 2-0 on the season with a 73-34 rout of Long Beach State prior to the men’s game.
A hot start on both ends of the court in the opening period set the tone early for the Rams as they outscored Long Beach State by 20 points in the first quarter and 26 in the first half.
“Great, great start, and defensively especially,” CSU head coach Ryun Williams said. “I think it was midway through the first quarter, we finally found some rhythm offensively. We like to start fast. We like to set the tone defensively and that was a great quarter.”
CSU scored the first four points of the game and led 14-2 before Long Beach State made its second field goal of the game with 3:07 left in the first period.
After cutting the Rams’ advantage to 14-4, Long Beach State didn’t score again in the opening quarter. CSU, however, took the opportunity to extend its lead at will.
A 3-pointer by Hannah Ronsiek with seven seconds left in the period gave the Rams a 24-4 lead at the end of the first 10 minutes.
CSU continued to extend its lead in the second quarter even though the Rams made only one of 12 baskets from beyond the arc and shot 37% in the first half.
Defensively, they held Long Beach State to only five points in the period and led 35-19 at halftime.
“I think we did great defensively,” Ronsiek said. “It was definitely a point that we wanted to get defensive boards and get out and that would translate into our offense. So, I think we executed the game plan really well defensively.”
After scoring only 11 points in the second quarter, the Rams heated up again in the third, outscoring Long Beach State 23-114 to take a 58-23 lead into the final period where they used a 15-11 advantage to come out with the 73-34 final tally.
Lexus Bargesser led five Rams in double figures with 17 points. Lexi Deden added 11 and Madelyn Bragg, Ronsiek and McKenna Murphy each had 10. CSU got 26 points from its bench.
With wins over Weber State and Long Beach State to open the season, the Rams will get a big early-season test Thursday when they travel to Spokane, Wash. to face future Pac-12 opponent Gonzaga.
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