<\/p>\n
If you were feeling a draft in the Anaheim Convention Center for the second half Long Beach State’s second-round Big West Tourney game against Santa Barbara, chances are it was coming from the 49ers’ side of the court. <\/span>A fiery senior-led team went cold in the final twenty minutes, hitting just four field goals in the first 16 minutes of the final period of the season, falling 73-50 to the Gauchos. UCSB was swept by Long Beach in the regular season but turned in a great team performance on Thursday.<\/p>\n The 49ers got out well in the opening, with three of their first four buckets beyond the arc giving them an 11-8 lead. <\/span>But UCSB’s Meagan Williams and Emilie Johnson were unstoppable, driving into the paint on almost every play, getting 20 of their game-total 40 points in the first 20 minutes. <\/span>The game was tied at 21, but Williams and Johnson boosted a 6-0 run that gave the Gauchos the lead for good. <\/span>In the second half they, and the rest of the UCSB squad kept scoring, and the Niners never got hot enough to counter. <\/span>Credit also goes to Mekia Valentine, who finished with 11 points, 19 rebounds, and 5 blocks\u2014her presence in the paint helped alter Long Beach’s comfort level in the paint.<\/p>\n On the second half, coach Jody Wynn said, “We got the shots\u2014we had 31 attempts in the second half, and we didn’t crack double digits [on made shots].”<\/p>\n “The last two games we played them,” said senior Lauren Sims, “we shot well\u2014when we’re not hitting, it carries over into everything else.” <\/span><\/p>\n “It just wasn’t falling today,” said senior Karina Figueroa after the game, shaking her head.<\/p>\n UCSB coach Lindsay Gottlieb called Figueroa as good as any player in the Big West, and said their altered strategy revolved around her. <\/span>“She’s at her best when she’s creating,” she said. <\/span>“So we wanted to funnel her in, and not give her anywhere to pass the ball.”<\/p>\n It was a frustrated and red-eyed contingent that walked into the postgame press conference for the 49ers, but an optimistic one, too. <\/span>“I’m so proud of my kids,” said Wynn. <\/span>“Especially our seniors\u2026I want them to come back next year and when they root us to victory, they can say, ‘We started this.'” <\/span>Sims and Figueroa nodded vigorously along, representing the rest of a large senior class that includes Ally Wade, Lindsey Beckner, Brett Timmons, Courtney Jacob, and Sahfiya Brown. <\/span>Many of those seniors have, at one point or another this season, expressed that (without disrespecting former coach Mary Hegarty) they wished they could just have another year or two with Wynn’s 49ers.<\/p>\n “In my four years here,” said Sims, “this is by far our best season, by far our best team we’ve had together. <\/span>It ended too early.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A fiery group of seniors went a little cold in the second half of their second-round Big West Tournament game, as the 49ers’ season ended at the hands of UCSB.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-1820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1820\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1820"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=1820"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}