STOCKTON – Several streaks ended at Pacific’s Spanos Center on Thursday night. The UC Santa Barbara women’s basketball team lost its first conference game this season, its first conference road game since 2006 and to Pacific for the first time since 2003.
Despite Jenna Green’s third straight double-double – the first time that’s been done by a Gaucho since Kristen Mann in 2005 – UCSB lost to Pacific 59-50, ending its Big West road winning streak at 19 games. That mark had been the best in the nation.
UCSB falls to 16-8 overall and 11-1 in the Big West, the Gauchos’ hopes of a perfect conference season for the third time this decade dashed. Pacific improves to 14-11, 8-5.
Green finished with 11 points and 11 rebounds, giving her four double-doubles in her past five games and was an effective presence defensively again. She tallied two blocks and kept the conference’s leading scorer, Amber Simmons, in check once again.
Last month Simmons, who entered Thursday averaging 17.8 points per game, scored just six points at the Thunderdome and she again finished with just six points on Thursday on 1 of 13 shooting.
UCSB freshman Emilie Johnson, making her first start since Jan. 2, poured in a career-best 14 points to lead the Gauchos. Johnson, who had a lot of friends and family in the stands since she hails from nearby Loomis, Calif., buried four three-pointers and had a career-best five field goals.
The Gauchos dropped their first Big West road game since Feb. 25, 2006 when they lost at UC Riverside and it was the first time that Pacific defeated UCSB since Jan. 18, 2003, which was also UCSB’s only conference defeat that season.
The defeat pulls the Gauchos into a first-place tie with UC Riverside in the Big West. UCSB currently holds the tiebreaker since defeating the Highlanders, 47-40, in January. UC Riverside plays at Long Beach State on Friday.
UCSB plays on Saturday at UC Davis at 4:45 p.m. The game can be heard in Santa Barbara on KTMS 990 AM or followed online through Gametracker.
Pacific and UCSB could meet up again in Anaheim during the Big West Tournament next month. Make sure to get your tickets to the tournament because with every ticket purchased comes with a free UCSB T-shirt. Click here to purchase tickets.
The Gauchos return home on Feb. 24 vs. Oregon State at 7 p.m. for the team’s Pink Zone game to raise breast cancer awareness. Tickets are just $1 and pink baseball hats and player-designed pink T-shirts will be available for purchase with a portion of the proceeds going toward breast cancer research.
