Women's Basketball Concludes Road Trip With 75-59 Loss At The Pac-12's Arizona

Saturday, December 21

Tucson, AZ

5:00 pm

UC Riverside

4-7

Arizona

3-7

Team	1	2	F
UC Riverside	20	39	59
Arizona	37	38	75

Photo by: Carlos Puma

Women's Basketball Concludes Road Trip With 75-59 Loss At The Pac-12's Arizona

12/21/2013 6:44:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score

Tucson, Arizona - The UC Riverside Women's Basketball Team concluded its three-game road trip with a 75-59 loss at the Pac-12's Arizona on Saturday afternoon at the McKale Center. The Highlanders have now dropped four straight and fall to 4-7 on the season, while the Wildcats improve to 3-7 (box score).

UCR enjoyed a 5-0 lead in the beginning of the game after Natasha Hadley converted a layup and Brittany Crain hit a three-pointer, but the offense went cold missing eight consecutive shots over a six-minute span as the Wildcats scored 11 unanswered points.

Crain drained another long ball to stop the streak, and Akilah Martin chipped in with back-to-back three-pointers cutting Arizona's margin to 16-14 at the 8:35 mark. UA scored the next five as the lead was back to seven, 21-14, but UC Riverside countered with six straight--four from Annelise Ito and two from Hadley--as the advantage was just one, 21-20, with 4:48 left in the period.

The Highlanders offense encountered another cold spell, though, going scoreless for the remainder of the half as the Wildcats closed out the period on a 16-0 run to take a 37-20 lead into the break. UCR's offense made just under 30 percent from the floor while Arizona hit 36.7 percent, including 57.1 percent from long range.

UC Riverside opened the second period with five straight points to cut the lead to 12, but Arizona countered scoring 16 of the next 22 points as the lead reached 22, 53-31, with 13:48 to go.

UA's lead peaked at 23 on two occasions, the last with 4:04 remaining, but the Highlanders continued to push and scored seven straight cutting the margin to 69-53 a minute and a half later.

That was as close as UC Riverside would get, however, as the teams traded points to conclude the game with UA claiming the 75-59 victory.

The Highlanders improved their shooting in the second half hitting 46.9 percent, but Arizona was even better at 50 percent. For the game, UA hit 43.1 percent from the floor with UCR hitting 39.0 percent.

Hadley scored a game-high 17 points on 7-of-11 from the field while Crain added 16 points on 6-of-11 shooting. Carissa Crutchfield led five UA players in double figure scoring with 14 points.

UC Riverside now breaks for the Christmas holiday before returning to action as part of the four-team San Diego Surf & Slam Tournament on December 28 and 30 in San Diego, CA.