Cal State Northridge lost both games at the Matadome. The Matadors had a chance to seal a victory against UC Irvine Thursday, but failed to hold onto an 11-point second half lead.
CSUN’s lead vanished when Irvine went on a 29-4 run, handing Northridge another devastating loss.
The CSUN women’s basketball team (1-20, 1-7 Big West) started the game with aggressiveness holding the Anteaters scoreless for the first five minutes of action. Jasmine Erving led the Matadors in the first half with nine points and four rebounds. Erving had a total of 23 points on 9-of-15 attempts. Erving also added eight rebounds in the loss.
The Matadors did a great job shutting down Anteaters’ Mikah Maly-Karros, who entered the conference matchup as the Big West leading scorer and rebounder. She finished the game with 12 points and 10 rebounds.
The Matadors made more shots than UCI, but didn’t receive enough contribution from the bench, who was outscored by the Anteaters’ bench 19-3.
Northridge came into Saturday’s game against UC Santa Barbara with the same opportunity to win, but once again couldn’t play a full 40 minutes.
The Matadors led at the half but got outhustled in the second half by UCSB, getting blown out 71-48.
Lack of consistency has killed the Matadors this year. They start out great against opponents, but coming out of the locker room into the second half has proved to be a problem. The team slows down, giving its opponents the opportunity to grab large leads, leaving the Matadors with losses that could be avoided had they displayed a complete efforts throughout the whole game.
The Matadors have been outscored by a margin of 25 points or more after opening the second half. The Gauchos took a commanding lead in the second half, outscoring the Matadors 34-9 to take a 60-35 lead with seven minutes left in the game.
CSUN got a big game from Amanda Thomson, who led the team with 13 points in 19 minutes of action. This was Thomson’s first appearance on the court since Dec. 8. In addition to Thompson’s return was junior Bianca Davies. It was Davies’ first time playing since suffering a knee injury in Nov. 2009.
