Dixie State saw a furious second half rally come up just short as the Trailblazers were tripped up by New Mexico State by a 76-66 count on Friday night inside the Burns Arena. With the loss, the Blazers fell to 8-12 overall, 4-9 in WAC play, while the Aggies moved to 9-7, 6-6 in conference. 

Both teams battled back and forth in a high-scoring opening 20 minutes. The Trailblazers began with a flurry with Isaiah Pope and Cameron Gooden hitting book-end 3-pointers around a pair Hunter Schofield buckets as DSU jumped out to a quick 10-6 lead.

NMSU also got off to a fast start, especially from the perimeter, as the Aggies hit four of their first seven from downtown, and used a 10-0 run to erase the early deficit to vault to a 16-10 advantage.

New Mexico State led the rest of the period, and would extend it to double digits at 45-33, but a late Gooden trey provided the final points of the frame and pulled DSU to within nine heading into the halftime break.

DSU came out of the locker room and immediately made it a five-point game thanks to consecutive buckets from Jarod Greene and Gooden. However the Aggies countered with a 15-2 run to open up their biggest lead of the night at 60-42 with 12:59 to play.

Dixie State was held without a field goal for over six minutes before Gooden stopped the run with a lay-in. That bucket turned sparked a furious 17-4 Blazer rally that not only negated the Aggie run, but again made it a five-point game at 64-59 after two Schofield free throws with 5:23 remaining.

Six different Trailblazers scored during the run, while the Dixie State defense held the Aggies to only four made free throws as NMSU missed 15-straight from the floor over those seven-plus minutes.

However all the momentum came to a crashing halt in less than three minutes as New Mexico State countered with 10-straight points, the final four of which came off the shooting hand of preseason WAC player of the year Jabari Rice, who hit a dagger 3-pointer as the shot clock was expiring to push the Aggie advantage to 74-59 with 2:44 to go. NMSU did not look back from there and closed out its ninth win of the season.

"[NMSU] came out aggressive and just got after us tonight," DSU Head Coach Jon Judkins said. "They were tougher, they were more physical and they wanted the ball. We were hoping the ball would come to our hands instead of going to go get it.

"Give [NMSU] a lot of credit, they're good, they were picked to win [the WAC] and you can see why," Judkins added. "They got some really good players and they play extremely hard and physical, and if you don't match that, then you're going to get beat, and that's what happened tonight.

Dixie State lost despite shooting 48.9 percent (23-of-47) from the floor, compared to an even 40.0 percent clip (28-of-70) by NMSU. The difference came in the shot disparity as the Aggies attempted 23 more shots, thanks in large part to outrebounding DSU by a 43-39 count, including a 24-8 count on the offensive glass, which led to 21 Aggie second chance points (21-11).

NMSU also scored 19 points off of 18 Dixie State turnovers, while the Aggies turned the ball over just 10 times on the night.

"One of our players wrote on the board [in the locker room] 'turnovers and rebounding' and I told them it's that simple, those two things right there, that's all we had to do," Judkins noted. "We were getting good shots, we shot a better percentage from the field [than NMSU], we got to the foul line, but with everything we did, we gave up 23 more shots. That's a lot in a game."

Schofield led three Trailblazers in double figures with a co-game high 20 points, while Gooden scored 10 of his 16 points in the second half and finished with five assists. Meanwhile Andre Mulibea chipped in 10 points on 4-of-6 shooting with two 3-pointers.

Rice paced four Aggies in double figures with 20 points, 15 of which came from the perimeter (5-of-12 3FG).

Dixie State will put a bow on its NCAA Division I season with a rematch against NMSU on Senior Night Saturday. It will be the final game for three Trailblazer seniors – Dason Youngblood, Greene and Jamar Ergas.

"We have one more game tomorrow night and we have to go out there and get [a win]," Judkins said. "It's going to be an emotional game, but we are going to come out and try to win it for our seniors and for our fans."

Tip-off inside the Burns Arena on Saturday night is slated for 7 p.m. (MT).