California State University at Northridge
11-5, 1-1BWC
Hawai'i
8-7, 0-2BWC
Team Stats
Game Leaders
Players Mentioned
CSUN Overcomes Slow Start to Defeat Hawai'i
1/10/2015 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
The top two teams in the Preseason Big West Poll, both squads entered Saturday's game staring an 0-2 start in the face. Hawai'i, who played without Shawna-Lei Kuehu for a second-straight game, lost at Cal Poly Thursday.
Early on, the Matadors struggled mightily as they ran out a new starting line-up. CSUN started 1-11 from the field and trailed 8-1 roughly eight minutes into the game. However, a Cinnamon Lister 3-pointer and an old-fashioned three-point play helped spark the Matadors offensively.Â
CSUN closed the first half with a 24-19 lead. The Matadors shot 9-of-32 (28.1 percent) while the Rainbow Wahine finished at 7-of-26 (26.9 percent). Guay had seven points at the break for CSUN.
In the second half, the Matadors jumped out quickly on an 8-2 run to take a 32-21 lead with 15 minutes to play. Hawai'i chipped away and cut the lead to seven with 10:29 to play on a lay-up from Morgan Mason.Â
A lay-up from Megan Huff cut the lead to five with 7:46 to play as CSUN held on to a 36-31 advantage. From there, Lister, Guay and Tessa Boagni combined to score the next seven points and push the Matadors' lead back to 12 with 5:58 to play.Â
The lead swelled to 15 on a jumper from Katelin King and Hawai'i could only get to within seven before the buzzer sounded.Â
Guay led CSUN with 16 points on 6-of-12 shooting. She added seven rebounds, two assists and a steal and a block in 36 minutes.Â
Lister finished with 12 points in the victory, shooting 5-of-9 from the field. She had six rebounds and two assists in 29 minutes off the bench.Â
Janae Sharpe was the third Matador to score in double-figures, finishing with 12 points. She had five rebounds and two assists in 29 minutes.Â
Boagni led the Matadors in rebounding with a career-high nine boards. She added six points and a steal in her first career start. King and Caroline Gilling also made their first collegiate starts.Â
For the game, Hawai'i shot 28.3 percent (17-of-60) and became the fifth Matador opponent to score 50 or fewer points this season. Huff led the Rainbow Wahine with 15 points, nine rebounds and five blocked shots.
CSUN shot 35.1 percent (20-of-57) for the game and 44 percent (11-of-25) in the second half. The Matadors won the rebounding battle 50-37 and had 16 offensive boards. CSUN scored 29 points in the paint and had nine second-chance points.Â
"We talked about one small adjustment at halftime and I think that helped," CSUN head coach Jason Flowers said. "Part of the slow start may have been the freshmen having jitters for making their first career start, but they stuck with it. We had many people contribute and Cinnamon was big time in the first half."
The Matadors return to action on Thursday, Jan. 15 with a 7 p.m. home contest against UC Santa Barbara.Â