RIVERSIDE, Calif. - The University of California, Merced women's basketball team led wire-to-wire at La Sierra University and picked up a 70-62 win in the regular season finale Saturday night inside Alumni Pavilion.
The Bobcats (15-12, 9-5) have won 13 straight games vs. La Sierra and have swept the home and away series five consecutive seasons. Both are good for the longest active streak in the California Pacific Conference.
The win also marked the 15th of the year and the Bobcats have hit that mark for the fourth year in a row, which is tied with University of Antelope Valley for the longest active streak in the Cal Pac.
Head coach Sarah Hopkins-Chery got stellar performances out of multiple individuals both in the starting lineup and off the bench. Haylee Owen and Rainah Smith posted double-double's, marking just the fourth game in program history in which two Bobcats have accomplished that feat. It was last done on November 26, 2018 when Smith and Mia Shannon both notched a double-double at Fresno Pacific University. However, Owen and Smith are the first duo with a double-double in a conference road game.
Mia Belvin led the Bobcats and shared game-high with 22 points. The senior has gone for 20+ points in six of the last seven games and is now the second player in the California Pacific Conference this year to with 250+ Cal Pac points. Overall, Belvin upped her single-season total to 481 points and if she gets to 500 she will become the first player in Cal Pac history to record 500 or more points in two different seasons. Belvin had 522 points as a sophomore, which currently stands as the program's single-season record. Belvin's 22-point effort was accompanied by four rebounds, a team-high three steals and two assists. She is now five steals away from becoming the first Cal Pac player since 2012 with 100 or more steals in a single-season and just third player in Cal Pac history.
Owen played all 40 minutes and her second career double-double was almost identical to her first. This time around, Owen had 18 points and tied her career-high with ten assists. The Chula Vista, Calif., native is the first player in the Cal Pac to record that stat line since Embry-Riddle's Haley Villegas did so on February 4, 2017. Owen and Villegas are two of just three Cal Pac players all-time with at least 18 points and ten assists in the same game. Jolise Limcaco of Menlo College was the first to do it in 2011. Menlo left the Cal Pac after the 2014-15 season.
Owen also became just the second player in the history of the Cal Pac to tally 10+ assists twice during the conference slate. Danika Potestio of Holy Names University was the first to do so in the 2011-12 season. A year later Holy Names was a NCAA institution.
Smith's second double-double of the season was made up of ten points and eleven rebounds. She has scored in double figures six times this season and has grabbed at least ten rebounds on four different occasions, the majority of the efforts coming on the road. Seven of Smith's rebounds came on the offensive glass, tying her season-high, and she becomes the fifth player in the Cal Pac this year to grab at least seven offensive rebounds in multiple games. Four of Smith's seven offensive boards resulted in points for the Bobcats. She also had two assists, a block and a steal.
Deyliana Lewis and Gabriella Edmond were good for six points each and pitched in four and three rebounds, respectively, while Andrea Rogers nearly doubled her career-high and ended the night with eleven rebounds off the bench. Rogers, Lewis and Marisse Jackson have all grabbed double figure rebounds in at least one game while coming off the bench this season.
Overall, the Bobcats outrebounded La Sierra 51-25, 26-7 on the offensive glass. With those numbers, the Bobcats managed to put up 20 more shots than the Golden Eagles and finished with 26 second chance points. La Sierra finished with just two second chance points.
The Bobcats 26 offensive rebounds is a Cal Pac program-record.
After Jackson won the tip, the Bobcats had four opportunities to score on their first possession and got on the board when Smith earned a trip to the charity stripe and hit both foul shots. Belvin recorded her first steal and sent it ahead to Owen for a 4-0 lead 51 seconds into the night. An Owen three-point play a few minutes later put the Bobcats up 13-6 and then back-to-back buckets from Smith and Lewis garnered the first double figure lead of the night at 17-6. The Bobcats led 19-8 at the end of the first quarter, their second double figure lead after ten minutes of play in the last three games.
It ended up being the Bobcats most dominant stretch and they didn't outscore La Sierra in any of the remaining three quarters.
However, the Bobcats did start the second quarter strong and an 11-2 run had them up by a game-high 20 points, 30-10. Lewis highlighted the run with four points in the paint.
La Sierra countered with a 16-6 run that took up the final six minutes of the second quarter and brought the home team within ten to end the half, 36-26. During the 16-6 run, La Sierra scored six unanswered at one point and four unanswered in the final 90 seconds. Both teams had six turnovers in the second quarter.
After intermission, the Bobcats committed two quick fouls and the lead shrunk to five points at 40-35. Belvin and Owen had a brief run to get the lead back to nine but the Bobcats were never able to get the advantage back to double figures again.
The lead was just four points at 44-40 with 4:09 left in the third quarter. The Bobcats also led by four with 1:38 left. Needing a spark, Belvin provided one with back-to-back buckets and the Bobcats held a 56-48 lead heading into the final frame.
Neither team scored on two straight possessions for the first four minutes of the fourth quarter and the margin bounced around between five and eight points. However, La Sierra's Dayna Tanaka and Kayla De Leon buried back-to-back triples and all of a sudden the Bobcats led by just a point at 60-59.
In danger of losing the lead for the first time all game, Owen countered the host's 6-0 run with a mid-range jumper to put the Bobcats up 62-59 midway through the quarter.
The 62-59 score held from the 5:14 mark until the 2:10 mark. A field goal from each team made it 64-61 with 1:59 left. The 64-61 score marked the tightest margin in the final two minutes between these two teams since 2014. In each of the last four games, the Bobcats led La Sierra by 20 points with two minutes left.
Although the lead didn't get close to 20 in the final couple minutes, Owen and Belvin combined to make it 69-61 and the Bobcats held La Sierra without a field goal the rest of the way. A free throw made by each team in the final 21 seconds finalized the scoring at 70-62.
Overall, the Bobcats shot 40% (28-70) from the floor, 21% (3-14) from downtown and 73% (11-15) from the charity stripe. La Sierra shot 47% (9-19) from the three-point line.
Up next, the Bobcats travel to Prescott, Ariz. as the No. 3 seed in the California Pacific Conference Championships and will take on the host and No. 2 seed Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University on Saturday, February 29. Tip-off from the ERAU Activity Center is scheduled for 4:30pm PST. The winner will take on the winner of No. 1 University of Antelope Valley and No. 4 La Sierra on Monday, March 2 in the campionship game.
