<\/p>\n
Last year, the meager scattering of fans in the Pyramid would have stood in ovation for the Long Beach State women’s basketball team’s furious late-game rally, as they scrapped and dug an 11-point deficit to just three points shortly before time expired. <\/span>This year, the team’s new head coach and its old leader were left shaking their heads after a 75-70 defeat at the hands of Loyola Marymount, which gives the team its first loss of the year.<\/p>\n Truly, the rally was impressive, as players defended relentlessly in the backcourt, forced jump balls and grabbed steals, hit all their shots (including free throws), and played energetic, smart team ball. <\/span>“We ended the way we would hope to start the game,” said coach Jody Wynn, who collected her first career loss. <\/span>Karina Figueroa, a fifth-year leader on the team who definitely appears fully recovered from foot surgery, echoed her new coach’s statement. <\/span>“We fought hard at the end, but we should have done that from the beginning.”<\/p>\n The lackadaisical effort described by both was truly a sloppy affair, as the Niners spotted a physically superior Lions team a 14-point lead in the first seven minutes, failing to show any real positive signs on either end of the court. <\/span>It looked a little too familiar to another Niners player. <\/span>“We reverted back to last year,” said Lauren Sims. <\/span>“We were all on a separate page.”<\/p>\n In transition and in a set half-court defense, the team did a very poor job of closing to the perimeter, allowing a hot shooting Lions team to run up the score quickly from beyond the arc\u2014after the first half, 18 of their 38 points were off three-pointers. <\/span>But it went beyond that, as players fumbled passes, didn’t protect the ball while dribbling, and in once instance, literally tripped over each other.<\/p>\n “When you spot a Division 1 team a 13-point lead, it’s difficult to come back,” said Wynn. <\/span>“The defensive intensity was nowhere near what it needed to be.”<\/p>\n The second half was certainly an improvement\u2014better defensive effort forced eight turnovers and brought LMU’s shooting percentage down from 55% to 41%–but no amount of scrappy play could overcome the initial lapse, and even with the furious comeback attempt, with the team displaying lay-it-on-the-line intensity that seemed to totally fluster the Lions, they couldn’t claw their way back into the game. <\/span><\/p>\n Figueroa led the team with 21 points, five assists and five steals (she was also presented with a ceremonial ball before the game for joining the 49ers’ 1,000 point club on Friday); Sims was behind her with 14 points, including 2-3 behind the arc.<\/p>\n If the first half reminded fans of last year, the second half was more reminiscent of two years ago\u2014only on the men’s side of the program. <\/span>In Dan Monson’s first year at Long Beach, his team went 6-25, but wore themselves out with exhausting (if inconsistent) efforts in the losses. <\/span>As Wynn coaches an experienced roster that’s not necessarily stacked with the kind of players she hopes to recruit, her hell-on-wheels run-the-court style may lead to similar results. <\/span>In other words: the silver lining? The effort is vastly improved over last year. <\/span>The cold, hard truth? <\/span>The record may not be, unless the team can play the way they did in the last five minutes on a consistent basis.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The last five minutes of the 49ers’ loss would have been a highlight last season, but the team still picked up its first defeat of the year against LMU.<\/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-2749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2749","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=2749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2749\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2749"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=2749"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}