The Long Beach State women’s basketball team bounced back from a loss at UC Riverside with a 58-55 win against UC Santa Barbara on Saturday.
The 49ers (19-7, 8-4) completed its season sweep of the Gauchos (10-17, 7-6) on Saturday in a narrow win inside the Thunderdome.
All of LBSU’s junior guard Raven Benton’s 19 points came in the second half, which included a three-point play that gave the 49ers the three point lead with 17.9 seconds left. LBSU forced a Gaucho turnover and Benson drove down the lane and made the contested layup then converted the and-one.
Benton is now three points away from hitting the 1,000 point mark in her career at LBSU.
This game saw 18 lead changes and six ties. The 49ers forced 23 turnovers and their best defensive performance came against junior Onome Jemerigbe. LBSU held the guard to zero points, one assist and forced her into seven turnovers. LBSU took care of the ball better, only committing 13 turnovers.
On Thursday, UC Riverside (19-7, 12-0) led by as many as 28 points at one point in LBSU’s 83-58 loss. The 49ers allowed more than 80 total points for the first time this season.
LBSU ends its three game road trip against Cal Poly at 7 p.m. on Thursday inside the Kellogg Arena.