After suffering the most disappointing losses of the season the previous weekend, the UCSD women’s basketball team traveled to Central Valley this weekend, splitting games with California State Universities Stanislaus and Bakersfield.
Friday night the Tritons traveled to Turlock to take on the Warriors of CSUS, picking up a 75-63 victory.
The Tritons used hot three-point shooting (6 for 8) in the first half to build a 36-25 lead.
UCSD cooled off in the second half but managed to add another point to the margin of victory.
In a balanced attack, Ali Ginn led the team in scoring with 19 points. Maya Fok added 14, while Margaret Johnson and Nicholle Bromley added 12. Bromley led the team in rebounds, picking up eight.
Center Shannon Donnley added 25 points and eight rebounds for the Warriors, but her inside dominance was not enough to keep the home side close.
The Tritons traveled south to take on the No. 21 Roadrunners of CSUB Saturday night. Unfortunately, UCSD came up on the losing end and was never close to knocking off the California Collegiate Athletic Association’s second-place team.
Up 9-8 in the first half, the Tritons fell victim to a 15-0 run that saw the lead jump to 14. UCSD never came within 12 points for the rest of the game.
During that run, Bakersfield’s Diane Dittburner shot her 76th three-point field goal of the season, tying the CCAA record. Dittburner added two more before the game ended to give her the record, with six games left to play.
UCSD did manage to contain the nation’s leading scorer, center Heather Garay, to 16 points, but Dittburner’s 23 were too much for the Tritons to handle.
The Tritons were hindered by poor team shooting going 20-63 (31.7 percent) from the field, well below their season average of 36.7 percent.
Ginn led the Tritons in scoring with 13 and in rebounds with six. Sandhal Nelson, in her most minutes of play this season, added six boards and five points.
This road trip came on the heels of last week’s heartbreaking losses to San Francisco State University and Sonoma State University. Entering those matches, the Tritons were ranked No. 10 in the west with an outside chance of making the National Collegiate Athletic Association tournament. Their losses to San Francisco, Sonoma and Bakersfield all but ended any chance the Tritons had to compete in post-season play. UCSD is now 7-9 in the CCAA and 11-10 overall.
The Tritons return to action Friday night against California State University Dominguez Hills. The annual UCSD Spirit Night game tips off at 5:30 p.m. at RIMAC Arena.