By Scott Mammoser
PHOENIX – After a back-and-forth first half, Cal State
Bakersfield connected on some long-range shots at key moments to break away
from the Grand Canyon University women’s basketball team, 59-46, on Saturday.
Ashley Austin scored nine of her 17 points in the opening
period to lead CSUB (9-12, 5-3 WAC), as both the first and second quarters were
decided by one point. Jasmin Dixon drained a three from the corner to open a
six-point lead for CSUB midway through the third. GCU (5-13, 3-5 WAC) began
catching up, before another three from Malayasia McHenry from the exact same
spot, and a low-post tip in from Vanessa Austin at the buzzer amounted to a
42-34 CSUB edge. Jazmine Johnson connected on the third strike from the right
corner for three points with three minutes to play.
“I don’t think it was anything they were doing,” said GCU
senior forward AJ Cephas, who scored 12 points with five rebounds. “I think it
was on us, and we got fatigued. It was just hard to push through as much as we
should have.”
Da’jah Daniel scored nine of her GCU-high 14 points in the
first quarter. The 6-foot-4 junior forward who averages six points per game,
was named the WAC Player of the Week after her 24 point-22 rebound performance
in GCU’s previous game, a 75-71 win over California Baptist, and that is just
one of nine such games in Division I this season. She also grabbed a game-high
nine rebounds on Saturday.
“We’re going to watch film and work on this, come back even
stronger next time,” Cephas added. “We for sure had our lows, but we know how
good we can be, when we play together. When we get a healthy group back, we’ll
be good. We’re going to keep working on us, we need to be aggressive on defense.
As long as we stay on that aggressive mentality, we’ll be good.”
McHenry added 13 points for the Roadrunners and Austin 10.
While CSUB will be at New Mexico State on Thursday, the Lopes will next be at
UTRGV at 6 p.m. on Feb. 7, and they return home to face Kansas City at 6 p.m.
on Feb. 14. GCU and CSUB will play again in California on March 2.
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