On Saturday at Haas Pavilion, Cal women’s basketball defeated Santa Clara 69-65. Senior forward Jaelyn Brown led the way for Cal with 26 points and 11 rebounds while freshman forward Evelien Lutje Schipholt (19 points & 9 rebounds) and redshirt senior center Chen Yue (10 points & 10 rebounds) also finished in double figures. It was Chen’s first career double-double. Cal improves to 7-2 on the season while Santa Clara falls to 4-5.
“I think this was a good win for our program,” Cal head coach Charmin Smith said after the game. “I think Santa Clara challenged us in a lot of ways. I think they played with a lot of confidence. They’ve had games where they’ve had to come back from a large deficit and I could tell that they were used to being in that position. I’m glad that after giving up a lead we were able to recover and come out with the win and really excited about what this program is doing, having four freshmen on the floor at the end of the game. I just think we’re really growing and getting better every day.”
Santa Clara got out to a 9-6 lead with 4:24 to go in the 1st quarter. Santa Clara was shooting 4-11 (36.4%) from the field while Cal was shooting 2-8. Santa Clara’s early lead wouldn’t last for long as Cal would finish the quarter on a 15-4 run, going up 21-13. Brown really came alive for Cal as she was now up to 11 points on 3-6 shooting from the field and 5-5 shooting from the foul line. Brown converted a pretty 3-point play, knocking down a jumper while falling to the ground before making the free throw.
With 6:19 to go in the half, Cal led 27-17 as Lutje Schipholt was up to 8 points and 2 rebounds, both of which came on the offensive glass. Neither team was shooting well from deep as Santa Clara was 1-6 while Cal was 0-2. That cold shooting didn’t last long as Santa Clara would close the half out on a 9-0 run to go up 36-33 at halftime, making a couple of more threes to get some sort of rhythm from beyond the arc. Lauren Yearwood was up to 11 points, 5 rebounds, and 2 assists for Santa Clara while Jaelyn Brown had 13 points and 4 rebounds for Cal.
With 4:44 to go in the 3rd quarter, Santa Clara was up 45-44 as Cal was getting back into the game. Brown was up to 16 points and 6 rebounds while Chen was up to 6 points, 6 rebounds, 1 assist, and 1 block. Chen was giving Cal a much needed boost. At the end of the 3rd quarter, Cal held a 52-51 lead as Brown (21 points & 9 rebounds) led the way for Cal. Lutje Schipholt (10 points & 5 rebounds) and Chen (8 points, 7 rebounds, 1 assist, and 1 block) were crucial during this quarter, giving Brown the support she needed.
“Well, I really just do whatever I can in the games,” Chen said. “I know I’m not a WNBA level player, but I’m just trying to do the little details, which can help my team win. So those things add up. That’s my mindset.
“I mean, Santa Clara’s a really good team…We really want to take every opportunity to do our best. Not to waste any minute. So, in this game, we went through some hard times. Like, we got a lead and then they cut it down, so we’re just trying to stay in the game and we know that our team as a whole, we trust each other, we got each other’s back. I think that’s our whole mentality when we get down and come back.”
“I think the motivation comes really from our team and each other,” Lutje Schipholt added. “The way we are family for each other, and we love each other and the environment we have created where we just want to fight for every ball and for each other, which makes us want to hustle, run, everything. I think that’s something that we should be proud of as a team.”
With 4:38 to go, Santa Clara was back in front up 61-59. It was a tight game. Merle Wiehl was up to 17 points for Santa Clara on 3-4 shooting from 3-point range while Brown was up to 25 points for Cal. With 3:47 to go, Santa Clara was up 63-59 as they were on a 7-0 run. Cal had 0 points in the last 2:05, really struggling to get anything going.
Cal’s drought didn’t last long as Lutje Schipholt had 4 clutch points inside while Leilani McIntosh went 1-2 at the foul line. Cal was now up 68-65 with 26.1 to go. From there, Cal was able to hang on, walking out with a 69-65 win.
It was a gritty win and one that required all 40 minutes, but in the end a win is all that matters. When asked about whether or not she was happy with how her team played, Charmin Smith made it clear that she was very pleased with how her team found a way to win despite the adversity.
“I’m really satisfied with how we played,” Smith said. “I was disappointed that we let that lead go in the first half. I thought I actually should have called a timeout late in the second quarter. I’ll go back and watch that. I just feel like I have confidence in this team that ok, the next play we’re gonna do it. We’re gonna do it right and we had a stretch there where there were too many consecutive plays in which we didn’t do it the right way and I think I should have called a time out to settle us down in that moment.
“But at halftime, we talked about what we needed to do and even those adjustments still didn’t really work until we started switching. And all of these things we’ve drilled in practice. We’ve worked on it. Fouling at the end of the game when we have fouls to give. That’s something we practice and they went from having 26 seconds to only having 12 seconds to run a play and I was really proud of this young team, with four freshmen out there, for being able to execute that type of strategy and we’ve been through a lot as a group and for us to come out here and play the way we played against what I think is a really solid team that had some confidence. I’m definitely proud of what we did.”
Up next for Cal is a home against a top-25 ranked Kentucky team. That game will tipoff at 4:00 PM PST on Saturday, December 21st.
