9:36am | Their basketball dreams appeared dead and buried in December with a 2-12 record, but in mid-February on their Senior Salute Night the Long Beach State women’s basketball team shook up the Big West standings with a pesky press and their second upset win in a row, 70-68 in overtime over UC Riverside.
On top of a dramatic 60-59 win Saturday win over another of the pre-season favorites, UC Davis, this Niner triumph also kept Jody Wynn’s Beach team not only in the Big West tourney but perhaps playing as the seventh or sixth place team.
Seniors Courtney Jacob, Ashley Bookman and Melanie Lisnock got the bouquets and all contributed to the win. Lisnock was part of a nagging, pressing defense that UCR Coach John Margaritis said, “Just wore us out.” That was the LB plan, according to ‘Niner assistant coach Laura Freimuth. “We knew they were too big for us to play in a half court game so we had to press, and well, it worked.”
In the end the 49ers, now 6-7 in the Big West, had the balanced attack led by a mix of those seniors and a couple of freshmen. The high scorer was freshman Englishwoman Ella Clark who led the way with a season-high 18 points (8-for-11 from the floor, 2-of-3 from behind the arc). Her fellow freshman Brandi Henton scored 13.
It was see-saw early but UC Riverside pulled ahead thanks to a 13-2 run that put the visitors on top, 22-11. LBSU answered with a 10-2 spurt of its own and opened the second period on a 7-2 spurt to cut the deficit to 32-30. The Highlanders proceeded to take a 41-33 lead with 14:59 on the clock. After that Clark scored five consecutive points to bring the 49ers back within three setting the stage for Hinton’s game winning three pointer in OT. Long Beach State hits the road for its final three games of the regular season, UC Santa Barbara (Feb. 24); Cal Poly (Feb. 26) and then a double-header with the 49er men on March 2nd.
Elsewhere in the league, it was senior Janet Alvarado who turned in a career-high 16 points and 10 rebounds en route to her first career double-double as the Cal State Northridge Matadors (4-22, 4-9 BWC) defeated top ranked Cal Poly (14-9, 10-2 BWC) 68-65 Thursday night at the Matadome. That was to keep CSUN still alive as one of the eight qualifiers fighting with Fullerton and Pacific to make the BWC post season party. In Irvine, the ‘Eaters’ Tayler Champion posted a career-high 25 points as UCI defeated Pacific, 74-66. The other chaser was Fullerton but after hitting the final two free throws, Emilie Johnson corralled the final last-ditch three-point attempt by the Titans in the UC Santa Barbara 73-70 victory.