Malou
Carlos Puma
59
UC Riverside UCR 11-12, 5-6 BWC
72
Winner UC Davis UCD 18-6, 10-1 BWC
UC Riverside UCR
11-12, 5-6 BWC
59
Final
72
UC Davis UCD
18-6, 10-1 BWC
Winner
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 3 4 F
UC Riverside UCR 11 10 21 17 59
UC Davis UCD 12 17 20 23 72

Game Recap: Women's Basketball |

Women's Basketball Loses to UC Davis to Snap Four-Game Winning Streak

DAVIS, Calif.—After a solid few weeks of play in which the UC Riverside Women's basketball team won four straight games, it came across a superior UC Davis squad on Thursday night in a 72-59 loss.

The Highlanders (11-12, 5-4) lost to the hottest team in the Big West. With Thursday's win, the Aggies (17-6, 9-1) have now won nine straight games. Back on Jan. 5, the Highlanders played their first conference game against the Aggies at home and took a 67-59 loss.

"We battled to a point, but they were just better than us," head coach John Margaritis said. "They are the best team in the conference and it really showed."

Thursday's game marked a matchup between the conference's top two scorers. Morgan Bertsch came into the game averaging 24.2 points in conference, while Jannon Otto came in averaging 19.6 points.

Both teams came out rather cold from the field, combining to score just 23 points in the first quarter. The Highlanders shot just 28.6 percent from the field, while the Aggies shot 25 percent. UC Davis went into the second quarter with a 12-11 lead.

Down 21-19 with just a little over three minutes left in the second quarter, the team allowed the Aggies to go on an 8-2 run at the end of the quarter and went into halftime down 29-21.

Just as many schools have throughout the season, the Highlanders had no answer for Bertsch. She scored 13 points in the first half and  30 points overall on 11-for-19 shooting. However, she was the only player for UC Davis to score in double digits.

Otto finished the game with 15 points and eight rebounds, while Keilanei Cooper and Marina Ewodo also scored in double digits. Cooper tallied 13 points, while Ewodo scored 11 points.

After the Highlanders shot 52.9 percent (9-for-17) from the field in the third quarter and had four different players score, an early bucket in the fourth quarter chopped Davis' lead to five points. However, that's as close as the team would get. It could never get into enough of an offensive rhythm to get over the hump.

"We were just not in sync," Margaritis said. "We were not aggressive enough against such a good team and were passing up shots that should have been taken."

The Highlanders will have a quick turnaround, playing Cal Poly at home on Saturday at 5 p.m. Margaritis believes the three games over the next two weeks are very important in determining the outcome of the season.

"This is really pivotal to our season and how things will wind up in conference," Margaritis said. "We need to be ready to battle."