Aggie women roll past Cal Poly in Big West basketball
Epps leads four Aggies into double figures in 87-61 win
Nya Epps led the way with 17 points and eight rebounds as UC Davis led wire to wire in an 87-61 Big West women’s basketball win over Cal Poly SLO Saturday afternoon before a gathering of 706 in the University Credit Union Center.
The win pushes the Aggies to 4-1 in conference play and 11-5 overall, while Poly is now 1-5 and 3-13.
“It’s a huge win for us,” said Aggie head coach Jen Gross.
“We knew coming in that this was a big one to gain some momentum going into next week.”
The Aggies will travel to Cal State Fullerton on Thursday, then head to league-leading UC Irvine, 6-0 in conference play, Saturday.
Epps and Megan Norris both had layups as UCD opened a 4-0 lead and never paused, pushing the margin to 13-3 on a 3-pointer from Ryann Bennett.
UCD led 18-11 at the quarter, then blew things open with a 13-0 run to take a 33-14 lead, with Bennett, Epps and Tegan Young all contributing treys during the spurt.
Gross was especially happy with the Aggie defense early on, coming off a disappointing Thursday night home loss to UC Santa Barbara.
“That was a big focal point for us today, just trying to set the tone with our defense,” Gross noted.
“That really fueled our offense and we were able to get a lot of people into the game. Vic Baker came in and gave us a spark off the bench.”
Baker had 12 points, three assists and two steals, while Norris had 15 points and Bennett 14.
Added Gross, “Having four players in double figures is kind of how we like to play, which is a selfless style of basketball.”
Gross was also happy with the Aggies’ new “Tahoe Blue” uniforms in recognition of UCD’s well-known research center at Lake Tahoe.
“What a cool partnership we have with them,” said the Aggie coach.
“Celebrating that partnership with sports is really neat.”
In other Big West scores, Cal State Bakersfield crushed Long Beach State, 75-48, Cal State Fullerton routed Cal State Northridge, 73-58, UC Irvine edged Hawaii, 50-47, and UC San Diego drilled UC Riverside, 70-54.
Reach Bob Dunning at bobdunning@thewaryone.com