The Long Beach State women’s basketball team held off a furious rally by the University of San Francisco for an 81-79 non-conference win on Tuesday at the Walter Pyramid on the campus of Long Beach State.
The Beach came out fast and with 30 points in the second quarter, were able to take a 50-33 lead into halftime. But the Dons began to adjust in the third quarter and by the fourth were able to tie the game at 77-77, with 3:25 left in the game. But the Beach regained enough control to get the win.
First-year Long Beach Head Coach Amy Wright said the plan was to try and keep the Dons from controlling the inside and using size and the presence of players like Debora Dos Santos to dictate the game. Still, the Dons were able to do that in the second half.
“They’re a team that doesn’t quit, you know, as you can tell, we kind of punched them in the mouth and it took them two quarters to punch back but they did,” Wright said of the Dons.
The Beach also cooled off from the field in the second half. After hitting 8 of 15 three-pointers in the first half, Long Beach was held to just 1 of 8 from the arc in the second half. Junior guard Savannah Tucker led the Beach with 17 points, while five other players were also in double digits. Patricia Chung, Casey Valenti Paea and Jada Crawshaw all had 12 points, while Sydney Woodley had 11 and Davai Mathews added 10. Matthews led the Beach on the boards with eight rebounds and Crawshaw had seven.
Dons guard Jasmine Gayles finished with a game-high 21 points and guard Luana Leite had 18 points. Forward Dos Santos finished the game with 13 points and added 15 rebounds. Long Beach closes out its non-conference schedule with a home game against No. 6 USC on Thursday at 2 p.m.
