RIVERSIDE — The Long Beach State women’s basketball team lived up to its reputation for struggling on the road Tuesday night at the Student Recreation Center. Except this time, the 49ers won’t see another road game — or any contest for that matter — for about the next eight months.
The No. 6-seeded ‘Niners helplessly watched their season end as they fell into a seven-minute scoring drought, prompting a 15-0 run they had no answer for in a 83-65 quarterfinal loss to No. 3 UC Riverside in the Big West Conference Tournament.
“We didn’t do a good enough job at the beginning of the game to attack the pressure [the Highlanders] put on us, and it put us on our heels,” LBSU head coach Jody Wynn said. “At times we got aggressive, stepped up and rotated well, but we just couldn’t sustain it for 40 minutes.”
UCR will advance to play No. 4 UC Davis on Friday in the semifinals at the Honda Center in Anaheim.
The Highlanders broke the game open with a 7-0 burst capped by a left-wing 3 from Rhaya Neabors in the final three minutes of the first period to take a commanding 37-24 lead at halftime.
From there, the game went from bad to ugly for LBSU (8-23) to start the second half.
UCR (19-11), the defending conference tournament champion, picked up where it left off in the first period. The Highlanders scored eight unanswered points highlighted by a right-wing 3 from Neabors to take a 45-24 lead that became too much for the ‘Niners to overcome, as UCR cruised into the conference semifinals.
“They hit their 3s,” said senior Melanie Lisnock, who played her final game in a 49ers uniform and scored a team-high 16 points. “A lot of our focus was to keep it out of the key, but still contest the shot, and we just didn’t rotate.”
Senior team captain Courtney Jacob, who also played her last game for LBSU, scored 15. Freshman Ella Clark added 10, but missed 7-of-9 from the field.
LBSU senior forward Ashley Bookman also played the final game of her career, grabbing two rebounds in 19 minutes.
Meanwhile, Tre’Shonti Nottingham paced the Highlanders with 22 points on 6-of-12 shooting, including 9-of-10 from the free-throw line. Alyssa Morris scored 20 on a perfect 5-of-5 from the field — four coming from long distance — while Neabors added 16.
A corner 3 from Lisnock eventually stifled the seven-minute dry spell that carried over from the first period. But not before the 49ers coughed up three possessions and missed its first five shots to start the second half.
“We needed to come out with a bang and we needed to set a statement in the beginning of the second half, and we just didn’t do that,” Jacob said. “We couldn’t capitalize.”
The Highlanders shot 50 percent from the field (23 of 46), while the ‘Niners finished with a woeful 34.6 percent shooting (18 of 52).
Both teams committed a whopping 20 turnovers each, but the Highlanders cashed in for 28 points, while The Beach converted them into 17.
“We’re so young and we had a lot of injuries to deal with [this season],” Jacob said. “I think this team is ‘night and day’ from when we started.”
The Beach seized control of the momentum early and took a 10-7 lead following a pull-up jumper from Sendy Valles with just over five minutes gone by in the contest. The Highlanders, however, responded with an 11-0 run highlighted by two 3-pointers from Neabors.
From there, UCR pushed its lead to 30-18 as Nottingham keyed a 10-2 run after converting four free throws and consecutive baskets.
Despite the loss, Jacob said that the 49ers have a bright future ahead of them next season.
“The freshmen really settled in [this season] and we’ve had big leaders step up, and they’re gonna be great next year,” Jacob said.
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