On Friday, Cal women’s basketball fell to #21 Utah by a final score of 87-74. Senior forward Megan Huff led the way for the Utes with 24 points and 9 rebounds while senior forward Kristine Anigwe was the top performer for the Golden Bears with 24 points and 15 rebounds. Utah improves to 17-1 overall and 6-1 in the Pac-12 while Cal falls to 12-6 overall and 3-4 in the Pac-12.
One of the questions coming into the game was whether or not Utah freshman Dre’Una Edwards (dislocated right shoulder) would play. Edwards not only played, she started and scored her team’s first 6 points. The problem for Utah early was getting others going. Thanks to 5 points from Kianna Smith and 4 points from Jaelyn Brown, Cal took a 12-6 lead with 4:43 to go in the 1st quarter.
Coming out of a timeout, Utah responded to Cal’s strong start with a 12-2 run to go up 16-14 with 3:05 to go in the 1st quarter. Andrea Torres knocked down a 3-pointer to give the Utes the lead, giving Dre’Una Edwards the help that she needed. Utah would go on to take a 23-18 lead at the end of the 1st quarter behind 8 points from Edwards on 4-4 shooting from the field. Kristine Anigwe also got rolling early for Cal, finishing with 6 points on 3-5 shooting from the field in the quarter.
Utah would continue to build on their lead, going on a 7-0 run to go up 37-24 with 5:58 to go in the 2nd quarter. It was already danger time for Cal, who was getting killed on the glass 13-7 and allowing Utah to shoot 5-9 from 3-point range. Cal would battle back a bit towards the end of the quarter to go down 44-36 at halftime. Still, Utah was in a really good position with Kiana Moore (12 points & 5 rebound) and Dre’Una Edwards (11 points) leading the charge. Kristine Anigwe (10 points & 7 rebounds) was the top performer for Cal, but she wasn’t getting much help outside of Kianna Smith, who had 7 points in the half.
The 3rd quarter didn’t go the way Cal would have hoped. Rather than chipping away at Utah’s lead, Cal found themselves down 57-46 with 4:10 to go in the quarter. Kristine Anigwe was up to 14 points after knocking down a pair of free throws, but Cal needed others to step up as well. After just 6 points in the 1st half, Megan Huff woke up in the 3rd quarter, scoring 9 points to give her 15 points and 7 rebounds. As a result of her stellar performance, Utah would lead 62-53 at the end of the 3rd quarter.
The 4th quarter was more of the same for Cal. Every time they would score, it seemed like Utah had an answer on the other end. Utah scored a lot of easy baskets inside, catching Cal napping on defense. With a 74-64 lead with 4:21 to go, Utah was really in the driver’s seat. Over the final minutes, Cal was unable to close the gap. Utah would lead 81-70 with 1:53 to go and cruise to an 87-74 victory. Huff would score yet another 9 points in the 4th quarter, doing a really good job of putting the game away.
After a strong weekend against the Washington schools, this was not the way Cal wanted this game to go. To Utah’s credit, they did a really good job of executing their offense and playing really good defense, holding Cal to 44.1% shooting from the field and 5-19 (26.3%) shooting from 3-point range. On top of that, they won the battle on the glass 33-30, not allowing Cal to take advantage of their biggest strength.
Up next for Cal is a game on Sunday at Colorado. That game will tipoff at 12:00 PM PST on Pac-12 Networks.
