The Matadors are coming off a big 82-72 victory at UC Irvine that put them in a position to reach the Big West Conference tournament in March. The team has only seven games left, four which are at home.
The Cal State Northridge women’s basketball team (2-21, 2-8 BWC) dealt UCI its fifth conference loss with hot shooting, recording a season-high 64.3 percent from the field. This was a rematch from the Jan. 27 game in which the Matadors let a 11-point lead slip way en route to a 59-53 loss at the Matadome.
CSUN guard Bridgette Conejo was confident that a second time around against the Anteaters (13-9, 5-5 BWC) would produce a more positive result.
“We felt good in the rematch against UCI,” Conejo said. “We knew we can compete with them and it was a matter of learning from our mistakes from the first time we played.”
The on-point Matador shooting included 11-of-18 (61.1 percent) from beyond the arch and a nearly perfect performance from the free-throw line where they went 17-of-18 (94.4 percent) that resulted in a season-high 82 points.
Matador Jasmine Erving recorded her seventh double-double of the season, scoring 27 points and grabbing 10 rebounds. Freshman guard Haley White had a season-high 17 points.
CSUN remains on the road as they travel to Long Beach State on Wednesday and back home against conference leader Cal Poly on Saturday.
The Matadors feel confident they can continue their stellar play against the 49ers this week.
“We are prepared for the game against Long Beach this week, I feel we play better as a team on the road than at our own house,” said Conejo, who is averaging 6 points and 5.1 rebounds per game.
The Matadors are facing a Long Beach State (5-19, 3-7 BWC) team that has lost its previous two games. The 49ers where blown out at home, 73-54, against Seattle University.
Long Beach State leads the all-time series against CSUN 32-11. The Matadors lost to the 48ers 64-50 at the Matadome in their first meeting of the season on Jan. 5. In that game, the 49ers had three different players score in double figures, which included Brandi Henton (15 points), Ella Clark (14 points) and Tipesa Moorer (10 points).
Matador forward Violet Alama had a big game against the 49ers, scoring 20 points and grabbing 11 rebounds and Erving had a double-double with 16 points and 16 rebounds.
The Matadors will have to lockdown freshman Brandi Henton, who has proved to be one of Long Beach’s top scorers. She has notched two 30-point games this season, one of those games coming against USC. For the season she is second on the team in scoring, averaging 12.9 points a game.
