The Long Beach State women’s basketball team defeated UC Santa Barbara 60-52, on Saturday at the Walter Pyramid, bouncing back from a 60-42 loss against Hawai’i on the road.
The 49ers (18-6, 7-3) led throughout the whole game, but did allow UCSB (9-16, 6-5) to tie the game in the middle of the fourth quarter, at 48 points.
Just when it looked like LBSU would give up the lead, junior guard Raven Benton drove down the lane and drained a tough contested lay-up off the glass to give LBSU a two-point lead with 3:25 left in the game.
That shot would ice the game as the 49ers held off the Gauchos from even tying the game again.
“When they tied it, it was the gut check,” 49er head coach Jody Wynn said. “It was the refuse to lose attitude that they all had and Chantel [Dooley] gave us a great lift, great energy and great leadership.”
Senior guard Chantel Dooley helped the 49ers seal the win down stretch as she drained three free throws after Benton’s lay-up. Dooley finished the game with seven points and two rebounds.
Benton scored 15 points against the Gauchos, bouncing back from a game against Hawai’i where she scored zero points.
“Hawai’i is a game that [is] left in the past,” Benton said. “I knew I wasn’t making anything and I couldn’t do anything, so this game I just tried to relax more and just try to have the game come to me and it went [well].”
Benton came off the bench on Saturday; however, Wynn subbed her in immediately in the first quarter.
“We made an adjustment and started Chantel [Dooley] instead,” Wynn said. “And Raven played beautifully, she played within herself and she finished well today.”
Gauchos’ head coach Bonnie Henrickson said that her team just couldn’t get into rhythm offensively, that LBSU’s signature high pressure defense was too troublesome.
“We didn’t shoot the ball well,” Henrickson said. “[The 49ers] are disruptive, they shoot very few uncontested [shots], a lot of rushed [shots] and once they got into us and sped us up we couldn’t find any calmness in the chaos and they create chaos.”
The Gauchos finished the game shooting 28.8 percent from the field and 18.2 percent from behind the arc.
Wynn said going into this game that UCSB junior guard Onome Jemerigbe is one of the fastest and most dangerous guards in the league, but the 49ers held her to five points and allowed her to dish only one assist.
“We got in her gaps,” Wynn said. “We had tight gaps on her from the time she touched the ball in the inbounds pass, all the way until the basket. We tried to eliminate her space.”
On Thursday, the 49ers lost against Hawai’i, ending LBSU’s five-game winning streak.
LBSU scored a season-low of 42 points with junior forward Madison Montgomery registering the team high of only nine points. Hawai’i held the 49ers to 25.4 shooting and sophomore center Megan Huff had a game-high 18 points and 16 rebounds.
The 49ers’ next game is against UC Riverside on Thursday at the SRC Arena; tip off is at 5 p.m.