Freshman Taylor DeSilva scored a career-best 15 points on Saturday but it wasn’t enough for No. 16 SBCC, which dropped a 70-54 women’s basketball decision at West L.A.
It was the fifth straight win by the Wildcats (10-5) and the fourth straight loss for the Vaqueros, who finish the nonconference schedule with a 12-7 record.
The Vaqueros shot just 37 percent (23-63), including 3-23 on 3-pointers. Free throws were the difference as West L.A. made 25 of 36, compared to 5-18 for Santa Barbara.
Brooke Amenta, the Vaqueros’ top scorer, missed her second straight game with an injury.
DeSilva tallied 15 points on 7-10 shooting with four rebounds and three assists. Sara Crane had 11 points, 10 rebounds, four steals and three assists for SBCC, which trailed 36-31 at intermission.
The Vaqueros were within five at 55-50 with five minutes left but got outscored 15-4 the rest of the way.
“We’re playing good defense but we’re sending our opponents to the line too much,” said coach Sandrine Krul. “You can’t let your opponent shoot twice as many free throws.”
Mhiah Vickers had eights points for SBCC and Keia Nobles tallied six points and six rebounds.
“We’re having a hard time scoring but we’ll figure it out,” concluded Krul. “We went 12-7 in the preseason and we’ll take that and get things going in conference.”
SBCC opens WSC North play on Wednesday with a 7 p.m. game at Hancock.
