Dec. 31, 2011

Box Score

LONG BEACH - The Long Beach State women's basketball team led wire-to-wire in a convincing 63-51 victory over UC Irvine Saturday afternoon at the Walter Pyramid.

The 49ers (7-8, 2-0 BWC) are off to their best start in Big West play since the 2005-06 campaign when they claimed a share of the regular season title. LBSU has won four of its last five games and improved to 6-1 when playing at home.

Long Beach State shot an impressive 43.6 percent, while holding UCI to 36.2 percent. Freshman Alex Sanchez led the way as she went 8-for-10 from the field to finish with a game-high 18 points. She was also 2-of-2 from 3-point range and pulled down five rebounds. Senior Tipesa Moorer added 12 points, while junior Mary Ochiltree had 11 points and eight rebounds.

Freshmen Chantel Dooley and Lauren Spargo chipped in eight points each and sophomore Hallie Meneses dished out five assists.

LBSU raced out to a 7-0 lead before UC Irvine got on the board at the 17:17 mark. Spargo then hit a pair of 3-pointers to put the 49ers up, 13-2, with 13:08 to play. The Anteaters would cut the deficit to six before Long Beach State used a 6-0 spurt, capped by four consecutive free throws from Ochiltree, to pull ahead by 12 points (21-9).

UC Irvine (4-10, 0-2 BWC) eventually closed the gap to seven, but LBSU held a comfortable lead for the remainder of the half, taking a 33-23 advantage into the break.

In the first period, the 49ers shot 36.7 percent from the field and were 4-of-8 from behind the arc. Ochiltree led all scorers with nine points.

Long Beach State scored the first four points of the second half to take its largest lead of the game at 37-23. The Anteaters started to chip away, using a 10-4 run to make it 41-33 with 14:02 remaining, but the 49ers never let down as they led by at least nine the rest of the way.

A Sanchez 3-pointer followed by a pair of free throws from Meneses gave LBSU a 14-point advantage with 56 seconds on the clock. After the Anteaters hit a three, Meneses made 1-of-2 attempts from the charity stripe to secure the 63-51 victory.

Kassandra McCalister paced UC Irvine with 12 points and six rebounds, while Jasmine Bernard had 11 points.

Long Beach State continues Big West play next weekend when it closes out a six-game homestand by entertaining Cal State Northridge on Saturday, Jan. 7. Tip-off is set for 4 p.m. at the Walter Pyramid.