By Long Beach State women’s basketball’s (15-13 overall, 11-8 in conference) last regular season home game was spoiled by the UC San Diego Tritons 82-51.
A win would have put them level with UC Davis and UC Santa Barbara on record and given them a chance to jump to fourth place in the conference with a win next weekend. Instead, they fell to sixth place with no chance to improve.
The Beach, coming off two wins in a row, were stifled by the Tritons, who held The Beach to a mere 28.4% from the field.
“You know, they shot over 40% the entire game. So that’s hard, hard to do, hard to win,” LBSU head coach Amy Wright said. “If the ball is not going through the basket, everything else just kind of goes sideways.”
Fouls by The Beach played a massive part in the Tritons’ success as they went 14-19 at the line.
Senior UCSD guard Parker Montgomery fueled the Tritons to a 19-13 lead at the end of the first quarter with two threes, but sophomore forward Jada Crawshaw kept The Beach in the game with five points of her own in the quarter.
Crawshaw finished with 16 points and four rebounds on 7-17 shooting from the field.
The second quarter was much like the first as The Beach fell even farther behind thanks to the Tritons capitalizing on nine points off Beach turnovers in the quarter and finished the half up 42-26.
In the third, after a much needed halftime, LBSU found its rhythm momentarily by honing in on defense and holding UC San Diego scoreless for the first two minutes of the quarter.
However, The Beach weren’t able to find the basket either in those two minutes and continued to struggle from the field shooting six for 17 in the quarter.
Despite the lack of efficiency, LBSU outscored UC San Diego in the quarter 18-17 but were not able to separate themselves enough and still trailed 60-43 going into the fourth.
LBSU’s leading scorer, senior guard Savannah Tucker, was subbed out in the middle of the third quarter and did not re-enter.
Tucker finished with seven points and three assists on 2-8 shooting.
To make matters worse, the Tritons ended the game on a 17-0 run in the last 5:42 of the game and jumped out to an 82-51 lead at the buzzer.
“So towards the end, that’s why we just stuck to switching, man,” Wright said. “It was hard because they were able to find their way out of traps and then again, find the open shooter.”
Head coach Amy Wright thanked the fans as the last home game of the season ensued and said she, as well as many fans, “hoped for a better outcome.”
The Beach close out their season on the road as they travel to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo on Saturday, March 8. The Beach will find out their final seed in the Big West Tournament after the game.
