Culver City, CA (Women’s Basketball) -- The Citrus College Women’s Basketball team used a stifling full-court pressure defense and a number of quick outlet passes, as they fast breaked their way to a 72-52 victory at West Los Angeles College on Saturday night. The Lady Owls out-scored the Wildcats 27-8 on fast-break points in what would be the difference maker for Citrus.
The Lady Owls nearly led wire to wire, but the Wildcats would keep things closer than the score might indicate. Citrus led early 8-2 after back to back fast break lay-ups by Sophomore Bianca Nunez. West LA responded scoring eight of the next ten points to tie the game up at 10 all. The Wildcats would get their lone lead of the night seconds later as Ashley Stewart hit one of her two free-throw attempts to give West LA a 11-10 advantage.
Citrus would quickly take that lead back off a pair of Yvonne Sanchez freebies, as they began to systematically fast break the Wildcats to death. From that point forward Citrus’ scored nine straight points off fast breaks taking a 21-17 lead with just under nine minutes to go in the half. The Wildcats would keep to within three points of the Lady Owls lead, until Citrus went on a 8-1 run to close the half. The Lady Owls got a pair of free-throws from Briana Barfield and Jasmin Thomas as well as a pair of lay-ups from Sanchez and Christina Kinney that gave Citrus a 42-32 lead at the break.
Citrus would keep their lead between 7-9 points in the opening minutes of the second half. West LA would draw as close as five points with just under eight minutes to go, but again Citrus began to use the fast break to their advantage going on a 15-4 run to push their lead back to double digits and take a 64-48 lead after a Sanchez triple. In that run, six of their points came off fast breaks.
With the win, Citrus improves to 13-8 overall and 5-0 in WSC South play, while West LA falls to 2-18 overall and 0-6 in conference games. Saturday night’s win sets up a huge match-up on Wednesday when the Lady Owls play host to Canyons College (15-4, 5-0). The game will be for outright first place as both teams are undefeated through the first half of the conference schedule. Tip-off is set for 5:00 PM.
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