Box Score
HAYWARD, Calif. - The Cal Poly Pomona women's basketball team played solid defense and cruised to its sixth-straight victory Thursday, a 59-41 decision over Cal State East Bay.
The 41 points for the Pioneers marks the lowest total for a CPP opponent this season and the Broncos held the host squad to a 27.7-percent performance from the floor.
Sarah Semenero led all scorers with 11 points for CPP, as she connected on three treys while adding four rebounds, two assists and two steals in a team-high 30 minutes played.
"For her, it's all about building confidence in games," interim head coach
Danelle Bishop said. "She's shown us all of those skills in practice and now it's starting to click for her in games, which is great to see."
The Broncos improve to 12-2 overall and 9-1 in the California Collegiate Athletic Association, while CSUEB falls to 1-14 overall and 1-10 through conference play. Thursday's win is CPP's sixth in a row, which matches the Broncos' other streak earlier this season.
La'kenya Simon West got the CPP offense started Thursday, when she sank a three-pointer 38 seconds into the contest to break the scoreless tie. The Broncos did not surrender the lead the rest of the night, despite the team entering a scoring drought for more than three minutes after Simon West's trey.
Semenero got CPP back on the board as she hit a trey at 16:16 to put the Broncos up 6-2, with
Rosslyn Beard earning the assist on the play. It continued to be a low-scoring affair but despite CPP having trouble getting to the free throw line, five of the Broncos' 10 first-half field goals were of the three-point variety.
CPP, entering the week holding the CCAA's best rebounding margin at 5.4, continued to widen that edge on the boards by collecting 45 on Thursday as compared to 35 from CSUEB. Leading the way for the Broncos was
Megan Ford with nine, while
Jennifer Bryant and
Kaitlin Derby set new career highs with six and five boards respectively.
Carrying a 28-20 lead out of halftime, CPP kicked it up to a 12-point margin with four-straight points from Ford. The Broncos' defense held the Pioneers without a successful field goal for the first six and a half minutes of the second half, as the score stretched to 42-24.
The CPP lead reached as high as 24 points, after Derby knocked down a jumper with 7:37 to play. The Broncos were up 57-34 with five minutes remaining in regulation but a 7-2 CSUEB run to close out the contest brought the final score to 59-41.
Ford came close to a double-double performance and joined Semenero as the two CPP players with double-digit point totals after recording 10 of her own. The Broncos shot well from beyond the arc, going 8-for-19 (42.1 percent) from that distance.
Up next, CPP will travel to La Jolla to challenge UC San Diego on Saturday at 5:30 p.m. The Tritons' six-game winning streak was snapped Thursday in a 60-58 loss to Cal State San Bernardino. UCSD stands at 10-8 overall and 8-3 in the CCAA.
