UC Santa Barbara Women’s Basketball Eliminated From Big West Tournament by Long Beach State

Henderson, Nev. – The UC Santa Barbara Women’s basketball team couldn’t break out of its late season slump and bowed out of the Big West Tournament in the opening round following a 90-75 loss to Long Beach State on Wednesday afternoon.

The Gauchos fell behind 54-34 at halftime, but responded with a furious third quarter rally, cutting the deficit to 65-62 going into the fourth quarter. However, the mountain was ultimately too tall to climb.

“I’m certainly disappointed that we dug ourselves such a hole in the first half,” said UC Santa Barbara coach Bonnie Hendrickson. “I’m proud of our effort to get it back to three to start the fourth quarter.”

UC Santa Barbara senior Alexis Whitfield scored a career-high 30 points on 12-for-20 shooting from the field, grabbed a game-high 17 rebounds and dished out a game-high 8 assists, but her monster stat line wasn’t enough to offset a balanced Long Beach State attack.

Six Long Beach State players finished in double figures led by Savannah Tucker, who scored 17 points, including three 3-pointers. The 49ers knocked down a season-high 12 3-pointers as a team.

“What an outstanding gritty performance on both sides.” said Long Beach State coach Amy Wright.  “We saw Jekyll and Hyde today. We saw the absolute best that we can put forth and we had one quarter where it wasn’t our best.”

Long Beach never trailed in the game and jumped out to an 8-2 lead on a layup by Casey Valenti Paea. That lead ballooned to 25-11 on a fastbreak layup by Jada Crashaw with 2:15 remaining in the first quarter.

The Gauchos closed the first quarter on a 7-2 run capped off by an Alexis Whitfield jumper with two seconds remaining in the first quarter cutting their deficit to 27-18.

‘The 49ers offense continued to fire on all cylinders throughout the first half and a 3-pointer by Tucker with 51 seconds remaining in the first half increased their lead to 51-31.

In the third quarter UC Santa Barbara outscored Long Beach State 28-11 as Tucker continued her strong play and a jumper by Zoe Borter as the third quarter buzzer sounded cut the Gauchos deficit to 65-62.

“Most of it was just being scrappy defensively and trying to create offense from our defense,” Hendrickson said. “I was a little surprise that we were that close to start the fourth quarter. We thought it would probably be in the middle of the fourth quarter.”

Long Beach State opened the fourth quarter on a 12-4 run to halt the Gauchos’ momentum.

A jumper by Anya Choice cut the UC Santa Barbara deficit to 80-75 with 2:04 remaining, but that’s as close as the gauchos would come for the remainder of the game.

The Gauchos closed the season on a seven game losing streak and finished with a 16-15 overall record.