BERKELEY – The California women's basketball team faced some adversity but put together a strong defensive effort and received significant contributions from several players to come away with a 60-52 win over Pacific at Haas Pavilion on Tuesday night. With the win, the Golden Bears (2-1) improved to 28-2 all-time against the Tigers (1-2) and extended their winning streak to eight in the series.
Lulu Twidale had her best offensive outing of the season with 19 points including going 7-for-7 from the free throw line.
Gisella Maul and
Taylor Barnes both had career highs with eight rebounds each.
Finding themselves down by eight points late in the first quarter, the Bears turned up the defensive pressure and held Pacific scoreless for nearly a 12-minute stretch spanning the first and second quarters. During that stretch, Cal scored 18 unanswered but then gave up a 10-0 run over the last 2:40 to close the half and go into the break even at 24-24. Twidale had nine points during the run.
Pacific continued its run, scoring the first six points of the third quarter to once again put the Bears in the hole. After the Tigers went up by their biggest lead of the game at nine points with 6:43 to go in the quarter, the Bears dug in on defense once again and held Pacific to just five points the rest of the quarter. Nursing an ankle injury,
Mjracle Sheppard checked in for the first time at the 5:53 mark and made an immediate impact. She recorded two steals in the quarter including one that she took coast-to-coast to get the Bears to within four with 3:27 to go. Maul scored a layup and then Twidale drove and found
Claudia Langarita on the wing for a 3-pointer that capped a 9-0 run and put Cal up 41-40 going into the fourth quarter.
In the fourth quarter it was
Naya Ojukwu who came up huge for the Bears. With Cal holding just a three-point lead with 4:45 to go, she hit a jumper in the paint and then grabbed two offensive rebounds for putbacks including one that led to a three-point play that she converted later in the quarter. Her three-point play came with 1:07 to play and put Cal up by six to help it hold off Pacific in the closing minutes for the win.
"I'm really proud of our team and how we fought," Cal head coach
Charmin Smith said. "It's one of those games where I told the team we could have let go and it could have been too hard to fight back. We didn't have Mjracle [Sheppard] and there could have been excuses and we found a way. We didn't play our best but credit to Pacific. They were scrappy, aggressive and made it tough for us. In the end it goes down as a win which is what matters most. I think we were able to learn some things about ourselves that will make us better moving forward."
Pacific was led by Sydney Ward's 11 points.
NEXT UP
Cal hosts the Raising The B.A.R. Invitational this weekend with its first game against Charlotte on Saturday at 3 p.m. PT
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