WBB: Lancers fall to UC San Diego in start of Holiday Homestand
Lancers start out a stretch of three home games in six days with first loss to UC San Diego in Division 1 era...
RIVERSIDE, CA- Injuries seem to be a theme for the CBU women’s basketball team these last couple of years.
Just a year ago the Lancers lost Grace Schmidt to a patellar tendon tear at Christmas Break. Khloe Lemon also missed about a month due to injury and Filipa Barros missed both the WAC and NCAA tournaments.
However, the Lancers still managed to win WAC regular season and tournament titles for a second time in four years.
Unfortunately, Deja Vu has struck the Lancers as Lemon did not enter a game in 2024-25 and used a medical redshirt. Barros, meanwhile, entered two games before also using her medical redshirt with the duo both battling foot injuries.
Despite those injuries and others, CBU has been largely competitive against what has been labeled the toughest schedule in program history. They’ve played two games against Big Ten teams in Oregon and USC along with mid-major powers like San Diego State, Liberty, FGCU, along with defending WNIT champion St. Louis, holding their own despite the injuries.
The Lancers returned home as winners of two in a row after a pair of one score wins against Saint Mary’s and CSUN, the latter on a buzzer-beating fadeaway jumper by Anaiyah Tu’ua on Wednesday evening.
However, on Saturday afternoon against UC San Diego, CBU never led and fell behind by as many as 40 points in an 81-58 loss at the Dale E. and Sarah Ann Fowler Events Center. The lone bright spot was CBU outscoring the Tritons 22-5 in the fourth quarter
“We’ve had some pretty good moments that we can be proud of, even in losing, during this opening stretch but today was a huge step backwards for our group,” Lancers coach Jarrod Olson said. “UC San Diego is a better team than their record shows, they came ready to play, and took it to us today.”
CBU’s Nhug Bosch Duran, who had appeared and started in all 11 previous games this season, missed her first game of the year in the loss after scoring a career high 20 points on Wednesday. Sydney White and Nia Anderson had career highs with 12 and 10 points respectively. Meanwhile, Grace Schmidt added another 12 points and six rebounds.
UC San Diego started the game with Sabrina Ma and Parker Montgomery connecting on 3-pointers. Sumayah Sugapong’s layup finished an 8-0 run and forced a CBU timeout. The Lancers opened with five straight turnovers before White connected on a corner 3-pointer to get them on the board. Anderson’s shot from beyond the arc with 14 seconds left got the Lancers within 15 points after a quarter but that was as close as they got.
Sugapong had a career-high 24 points in the win for UC San Diego, who earned their first Division 1 win over CBU in three previous tries with the 23 point margin of victory being the largest margin of their four meetings.
“This is definitely a tough stretch to finish non conference play with and it’ll be nice to take a bit of time off before diving into the grind of conference play,” Olson added.
Middle Tennessee State, ranked fourth in the most recent collegeinsider.com women’s basketball mid-major poll, visits Riverside on Tuesday as both sides complete WAC/CUSA challenge play. After Thursday’s home game against Texas Southern, CBU will have 16 days between games when they return to action on January 4 at Seattle for their WAC opener.