As most of the student body hunkered down to begin studying for final exams, the UC San Diego women’s basketball team left for the beach. The Tritons spent the end of November in Hawaii, splitting a set of back-to-back games with a win against No. 11 Minnesota State Moorhead. 

After the team returned from Hawaii, the majority of the student body began packing up their things and prepared to head home. 

Once again, the women’s basketball team stayed behind, wrapping up the academic quarter with a 64–47 blowout home win over the visiting California State University, Chico Wildcats in front of the Winter Whiteout crowd at RIMAC Arena before setting out on a slate of five conference games over winter break that would prove tricky for the Tritons. 

The Tritons went 3–2 over the course of their academic break, playing three of the five games at home. In the home games, the team went 2–1, including their first win of 2020 on Saturday, Jan. 4 against the California State University, East Bay Pioneers in a 70–58 romp. The Pioneers had no answer for the Triton’s leading scorer, sophomore guard Julia Macabuhay, who scored a career-high 26 points in the win. 

While the win in the last game of the break should help bring the team into the new quarter with some momentum, it also serves to soften the sting of some of the losses from the break, especially the 69–61 overtime loss to rival California State Polytechnic University, Pomona on the road back on Dec. 22. 

Now 9–4 on the season and 5–3 in California Collegiate Athletic Association competition, UCSD finds itself in a four-way tie for third place in the CCAA. The Tritons will be presented with two chances to break the tie over their next two games against a pair of 5–3 opponents in the California State University, Stanislaus Warriors and the California State University, Humboldt Lumberjacks. This will be the first time UCSD takes on either of these CCAA opponents this season.