The Long Beach State women’s basketball team nearly came back to beat Loyola Marymount Monday night, but instead suffered a 75-70 loss at the Walter Pyramid.
After being down by as many as 19 points at the start of the second half, The Beach cut the deficit under 10 with 3:44 left to play.
“We ended the game the way we had hoped we would’ve started the game,” head coach Jody Wynn said.
Senior guard Lauren Sims scored on a layup and a jump shot with under a minute on the clock, cutting LMU’s lead to six with 44.5 seconds to play.
Forward Ashley Bookman pulled down a rebound on the missed front end of a 1-and-1 free-throw opportunity by LMU and kicked it out to senior guard Karina Figueroa, who went full court and drew the foul on the opposite end with 31.8 seconds remaining.
Figueroa made both free throws to cut the LMU lead to four and that was the closest they would get.
The Beach (1-1) dug itself into a hole early, trailing LMU (1-1) by 13 points at halftime.
“When you spot a team as good as LMU 13 points, it’s very difficult to come back and win that game,” Wynn said. “Our team fought and clawed in the second half but it wouldn’t have been like that if they would’ve played with that same sort of intensity and focus in the first half.”
LMU was 13-of-28 from 3-point range while LBSU shot 6-of-17.
“A lot of the 3s came on transition, we didn’t get back … and find the shooter,” Wynn said. “Our defensive intensity as a unit was never where it needed to be. We’ve got to do a better job defending the 3-point shot, that’s for sure”
Figueroa scored a game-high 21 points to go with five assists, and Sims added 14 points.
“We reverted back to last year, we were all on our own page. We didn’t play together on offense or defense so that really killed our momentum and our togetherness,” Sims said.
The ‘Niners will travel to New Mexico State on Friday. Tip-off is scheduled for 6:05 p.m.