The Long Beach State women’s basketball team finished its regular season 23-7 after defeating UC Davis 74-64 on Thursday and Cal State Northridge 79-69 on Saturday.
The 49ers also finished 12-4 in the Big West, winning their last five games heading into their Big West Tournament opener on Wednesday as the No. 3 seed.
LBSU and Hawai’i ended the season tied for second place in the conference; however, the Rainbow Wahine held the tiebreaker after picking up the season sweep over the 49ers.
On Saturday, LBSU bested the Matadors (7-23, 5-11) behind stellar performances by juniors Raven Benton and Madison Montgomery.
Benton scored a team-high of 27 points and Montgomery scored a career high of 22 points against CSUN.
The 49ers had control of the game from the opening whistle as they would lead as much as 19 points late in the second quarter. The Matadors came back in third quarter outscoring LBSU 20-9 and cutting the deficit down to eight.
However, it was not enough as the 49ers eventually pulled away in the fourth quarter thanks to a three pointer by junior point guard Anna Kim. This sparked a 10-3 run that jumped the lead to 68-57 with 5:44 left in the game.
Matadors’ freshman center Channon Fluker had a game-high 34 points and 15 rebounds.
Despite Fluker’s big performance, the Matadors turned the ball over 23 times, leading to 22 49er points.
The 49ers also won their home finale on Thursday, defeating UC Davis behind Benton’s 10 fourth-quarter points.
“She got in what we like to call the ‘Raven Zone,’” LBSU head coach Jody Wynn said. “And [she] did a really nice job getting to the rim and knocking down some shots off of the ball screens, as well as getting teammates involved.”
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Benton only played five minutes in the first quarter and sat on the bench for all of the second and third quarters due to foul trouble.
“I was getting in the groove early, but [the referees] called two quick fouls on me so I had to head to the bench,” Benton said. “My team played their hardest and they did their best.”
LBSU started the game off slow as the Aggies (17-12, 10-6) jumped to a 9-3 lead in the first quarter. Sophomore guard Gigi Hascheff drained a three to cut the Aggies lead down to 11-10.
The 49ers grabbed their first lead of the game in the middle of the second quarter thanks to a jumper in the paint by Montgomery.
LBSU held off the Aggies in the third and fourth quarters, shooting 6-11 behind the arc and forcing 10 steals which led to 20 second half points.
“Defensively, I thought we did a better job of trying to stay attached and not creating as many help-in-recover situations that we were giving up in the first half,” Wynn said.
Benton and sophomore guard Jess Gertz shared a team-high of 14 points, going a combined 4-7 behind the arc. Aggies freshman forward Morgan Bertsch led her team with 22 points off of 10-14 shooting.
The 49ers are scheduled to play on Wednesday against the lowest seeded team remaining after the first round. The game will be held at the Bren Center in Irvine and tip off is at 6 p.m.