CSUN (13-12, 7-6 Big West) defeated UC Davis Thursday (11-13, 5-8), 51-49 in a thrilling finish at the Matadome on “WBCA Play for Kay” night in support of breast cancer awareness.
The Matadors, wearing their special pink uniforms, won at the buzzer thanks to a last second shot by sophomore guard Ashlee Guay. With 4.3 seconds remaining, Guay took it the length of the floor and finger rolled it in with no time remaining.
“We had a designed play to dribble it up, I just did what I was supposed to do,” Guay said. “It doesn’t matter because plays before that led us to win, it was a total team effort.”
Guay led the way with the Matadors with a near quadruple-double as she tallied 15 points, eight rebounds, six assists, and seven steals, earning the praise of head coach Jason Flowers.
“I am extremely hard on her as a point guard,” Flowers said. “She works her tail off, she’s a tough kid, she just has a different mentality. Regardless of how young she is, she is the leader of our team because of what she does on the floor.”
Senior forward Violet Alama, also chipped in with a career-high 13 points and eight rebounds.
Despite their win, the Matadors got off to a slow start turning the ball over and opening the game down 8-0. Northridge quickly responded with an 11-0 run of its own, prompting a UC Davis timeout.
The score remained close, despite the Matadors shooting 15 percent from beyond the arc and 12 percent from the free throw line. As a team the Matadors shot 30.7 percent, and were able to hold the Aggies to 28.6 percent.
Junior guard Haley White, was proud of her team’s effort despite the shots not falling.
“It shows that we are tenacious and really want to win,” White said, who gave the Matadors a lead with 30 seconds left on a three-pointer. “We are going to fight regardless if we are making it, we are going to keep shooting until it goes in.”
The game went back and forth, but the Aggies started to pull away 45-37 with four minutes remaining in the game. Following a timeout, the Matadors came out and attacked immediately.
“It was about execution and I thought the biggest thing down the stretch was that we made a couple of shots,” Flowers said. “That shows mental toughness to struggle all game and when the game is on the line, kids make plays so that’s just an attribute of our team.”
Flowers was also impressed with his team’s physicality in the winning effort.
“We always want to be a blue-collar team and we want that to be part of our culture,” Flowers said. “There are some nights where you have to win ugly with defense, rebounding, or diving on the floor.”
