Recap: Cal powers past San Diego to remain unbeaten
While Cal football was taking care of business against Colorado on Saturday, #18 ranked Cal women’s basketball was doing their thing against San Diego, cruising to a 70-53 win at the San Diego Thanksgiving Tournament. Senior forward Kristine Anigwe had her sixth straight double-double to start the season with 25 points and 16 rebounds while senior guard Asha Thomas finished with 9 points and 3 assists on 4-10 shooting from the field. Junior guard Madison Pollock was the top performer for San Diego with 19 points on 8-14 shooting from the field. Cal improves to 6-0 on the season while San Diego falls to 2-3.
During the first quarter, Cal got off to an early 7-0 lead thanks to Kristine Anigwe, Kianna Smith, and Asha Thomas, who had a 3-point jumper fall. After getting off to a slow start in many of their games, Cal looked like they were eager to change that narrative. However, that 7-0 lead didn’t last for long. Madison Pollock got a jumper to fall with 6:38 to go in the first quarter, getting her team to wake up. San Diego outscored Cal 12-8 to finish the quarter and put themselves right back in the game, trailing by only three points.
In the second quarter, San Diego continued to pick up more confidence, scoring the first three points of the quarter to tie the game up 15-15. From there, both teams played each other even. Every time Cal looked like they might start to gain more separation, San Diego found a way to strike back, keeping the game tied. At halftime, Cal found themselves locked in a 29-29 game behind 12 points and 9 rebounds from Kristine Anigwe. As for San Diego, it was Madison Pollock who was leading the charge with 10 points.
While having slow starts has been a common theme for this Cal team, another common theme has been to dominate the second half. In their wins over Penn State, BYU, Pacific, and Tulane, Cal outscored their opponents by a combined scored of 175-125 in the second half. Against San Diego, Cal looked to continue that trend and they delivered the goods in dominating fashion, outscoring San Diego 22-8 in the third quarter. Kristine Anigwe, Asha Thomas, Jaelyn Brown, McKenzie Forbes, CJ West, and Alaysia Styles all scored for Cal in that quarter, making it a true team effort. As an exclamation point, Styles scored a bucket inside as time expired off a pretty assist from Asha Thomas.
With a 51-37 lead going into the fourth quarter, Cal was able to cruise to a win from there, outscoring San Diego 19-16 for good measure. Towards the end, everyone got in on the action. Chen Yue got a foul shot to fall, Mi’Cole Cayton made a layup, and walk-on Sierra Richey secured a defensive rebound. Everyone on this Cal team had their fingerprints somewhere on the outcome, which is why they came away with such a sound victory.
After a successful trip down south, Cal gets a week to rest up before hosting Cal State Northridge on Sunday, December 2nd. That game will tipoff at 2:00 PM PST. It will be Cal’s first game at Haas Pavilion since their 80-79 victory over Houston on November 6th.