Westmont women’s basketball team suffered its first loss of the season on Tuesday night, falling to an experienced Biola 78-55 in the Golden State Athletic Conference opener.
The Eagles return all but one player from last year’s team that went deep into the 2010 NAIA National Tournament.
“We had a terrible start and they had a very good start,” said Westmont head coach Kirsten Moore. “They were very focused, which is the sign of a veteran team. We have been better than that, though this is the second game in a row that we didn’t have a very good start.”
The first half saw the Warriors (6-1) shoot only 20 percent (6 of 30) from the floor. Westmont could not find its long distance range, missing all eight attempts.
The Eagles (6-1) jumped out to a 9-0 lead before Larissa Hensley put the Warriors on the board with a jumper 3:20 into the contest. From there, the Eagles produced a 14-2 run to take a 23-4 advantage with 10:50 remaining in the opening frame.
An Angel Blanco jumper cut the lead to 11 (25-14) with 5:50 remaining in the first half. However the Eagles closed out the half with a 6-2 run to take a 31-16 advantage into the locker room.
“We didn’t capitalize on opportunities we had in the first half,” said Moore. “We switched up defenses and gave ourselves a chance to get in the game by forcing a lot of turnovers. But we didn’t convert off of them so it was frustrating to go into halftime with a larger deficit than should have been.”
The second half started better for the Warriors when Lisa Peterson scored on a jumper and Katie Kittle nailed a three-pointer to cut the Eagle advantage to 10 (31-21) a minute and one-half into the second frame. Biola responded with three-pointers by Emily Drews (21 points) and Jennifer French (10 points, 5 rebounds).
Westmont roared back with two free throws and a layup by Peterson and Hensley scored from beyond the arc to make it a 37-28 game with 16 minutes to play. That was as close as the Warriors would get, however, as the Eagles slowly built a 25-point lead over the rest of the half.
The Warriors were led in scoring by junior forward Lisa Peterson who scored 17 points, pulled down four rebounds and dished off three assists. Peterson made five of eight attempts from the floor and seven of nine from the free throw line.
