Bennett and Norris lead comeback as Aggie women escape with a tense Big West basketball win over Long Beach State
59-56 victory puts Aggies in position to tie for the top in Saturday's season finale at home against UC Irvine
A look at the Big West women’s basketball standings might have convinced the casual fan that this would be an easy win for UC Davis.
But, proving once again that there’s no such thing as an easy out in the Big West, Long Beach State put up a fierce battle before the Aggies did just enough to pull out a 59-56 win before a gathering of 518 Thursday evening at the University Credit Union Center.
The win pushes UCD to 15-4 in league play and within a game of league leaders UC Irvine and UC San Diego with one game to play.
That one game for the Aggies will come Saturday at 2 p.m. against Irvine on an always emotional afternoon when UCD’s seniors will be honored in a pregame ceremony.
A win over the Anteaters would give UCD a double bye into the semifinals of next week’s Big West tournament in Henderson, Nevada. A win combined with a UC San Diego loss to Cal State Fullerton would allow the Aggies to share the regular season title with both Irvine and San Diego.
The Aggies jumped to a 23-13 lead early in the second quarter against Long Beach, but the visitors rallied to take a 47-43 lead into the final quarter and pushed that to 50-43 with 7:40 remaining.
That’s when the Aggies went to work.
Avery Sussex hit a critical 3-pointer to start the rally, then Ryann Bennett hit two straight driving layups to tie things at 50.
Long Beach, however, refused to go away and rallied to take a 55-54 lead into the final minute before all-everything Megan Norris hit a trey from the right corner and Bennett added a pair of free throws with 13 seconds left.
“Credit Long Beach for making the plays,” said Aggie head coach Jen Gross.
“We need to focus on defense for 40 minutes and there were times tonight when we didn’t do that. We just couldn’t seem to put them away, but Ryann always seems to make a play when we need one. It’s great that we are still in position to get a double bye if we can beat Irvine.”
Stopping the Anteaters, however, is no easy task.
When the teams met in Irvine on January 17, the Aggies suffered through their worst outing of the year and were soundly defeated, 73-42.
“We just couldn’t do anything,” said Gross, and the stat sheet backs up that assertion.
UCD was just 11 for 52 from the field and a miserable 2 for 22 from 3-point land in that drubbing, but Gross hopes her charges can turn those numbers around come Saturday afternoon.
Bennett led the Aggie effort against Long Beach with 20 points and five assists, Norris had 15 points and six rebounds, Nya Epps added 11 points and Sussex had five assists, four steals and four rebounds in her night’s work.
Elsewhere in the Big West Thursday night, San Diego dropped Cal State Fullerton, 77-69, Hawaii routed UC Riverside, 89-56, Cal State Northridge overwhelmed Cal State Bakersfield, 82-47, and Irvine beat Cal Poly, 85-65.
Reach Bob Dunning at bobdunning@thewaryone.com
I was only able to see the fourth quarter. Ryann Bennet demonstrated her versatility as a scorer against Long Beach’s zone defense. She flashed to the high post, received the ball, faked a pass to Norris who was located in the short corner, then drove hard to the basket for a bucket. This is classic forward play. And yet she has all the skills of a guard. Every kid learning to play basketball should watch Jen Gross’s teams play.