LAS VEGAS – Colorado State utilized every tick of the clock to extend its stay in its final Mountain West tournament.

Madelyn Bragg caught an inbound pass on the low block from Lexus Bargesser. With her back to the basket, she took one dribble, led with her left in a strong slide step toward the hoop and with an extended right hand banked in the winner that sent the third-seeded Rams into Monday’s semifinal with a 61-59 victory over No. 6 Grand Canyon in a thriller Sunday night.

“Really proud of our basketball team for having the competitive character to find a way to win that sucker,” said Colorado State coach Ryun Williams, whose team scored just 21 points in the first half and trailed by 12 late in the third quarter. “Because it didn’t look good for a lot of the night.”

The shot from Bragg was the third scoring play in the final three seconds of action.

Bargesser had hit a free throw with 3.2 seconds remaining to put CSU up by two.

Grand Canyon then tied it with 2.2 seconds remaining, also on an inbound pass to the interior that Julianna LaMendola converted.

Williams lamented not bringing in 6-foot-3 Caitlyn Kramer, a Colorado Springs native and Air Academy graduate, to defend the inbound pass that led to the tying basket.

That set up the game-winning play, with newcomer (Bargesser, the transfer from Indiana and Mountain West Newcomer of the Year) to newcomer (Bragg, from NCAA Division II Northern State) to knock off the newcomer (Grand Canyon, which brought a large and energetic student section in its first trip to the event at the Thomas & Mack Center).

“I think that’s the first time all year that we ran it right,” said Bargesser, who scored a game-high 19 points.

“I mean, what better time to do it?”

The winning sequence concluded a 25-point fourth quarter for the Rams, who seemed in danger of making it a short stay in the desert because of a few early dry spells.

The team that surged into the postseason with six consecutive wins endured scoreless stretches of 4 minutes, 55 seconds; 4:53; and three minutes, leaving it playing from behind for nearly 24 minutes.

“It was kind of climbing that mountain made of sand all night long,” Williams said. “We just couldn’t get a lot of traction going until that fourth. It’s easy to kind of just give up and slide down, but we kept finding a way and got some footing and a lot of winning plays. Not just offensively, but defensively.”

Kloe Froebe and Brooke Carlson added 15 points apiece for the Rams, whose bench was outscored by GCU’s bench, 21-3.

CSU (25-7) pointed to defensive stops that allowed it to get out and run in transition that helped break the repeated offensive funks and earn a third victory this season over the ‘Lopes.

Grand Canyon was led by LaMendola’s 13 points. Chloe Mann added 12.

Colorado State will face second-seeded UNLV in Monday’s second semifinal at 8:30 p.m. The teams split a pair of regular-season matchups.