Stamping Their Ticket
SAN DIEGO, Calif. – After starting out the season with a seven-game losing streak, California Baptist University has grown accustomed to feeling the pressure to win.
Thus, there wasn't a lot of pressure when CBU opened the PacWest Championship Tournament against Hawaii Pacific in the conference semifinals Saturday night. The Lancers earned the second seed and first-round bye by winning six of their final seven games of the regular season and kept things rolling with a 78-62 victory to advance to the tournament championship Saturday against top-seeded Academy of Art Saturday at 7:45 p.m.
“We just basically have been playing one game at a time since January; our motto is pretty much to take it one game at a time,” head coach Jarrod Olson said. “That's the best thing you can do in tournaments, not focus on anything in the past. I thought we did a good job of focusing things.”
As it has been known to do this season, CBU utilized a balanced and deep offensive attack to hold off Hawaii Pacific and showed poise beyond its years. Four Lancers – three freshmen – scored 14 or more points Friday night.
Freshmen Kamille Diaz and Erin Asher each scored 17 points for CBU, while fellow first-year player Cassidy Mihalko added a double-double with 16 points and 10 rebounds. Senior Ashley Jones provided 14 points for the Lancers. Olivia Weber added eight boards on the night.
“Since we're all freshmen, it's crazy how we just play off each other and feed off each other,” Diaz said. “Hopefully we can keep winning.”
CBU also limited its turnovers, forcing 15 and allowing nine to create extra possessions that gave it separation in the game.
Mihalko provided the first points of the game with a three-pointer coming off a Diaz pass. An Asher three kept CBU's three-point lead, 11-8, before the Sea Warriors rallied to take a 13-11 lead.
Hawaii Pacific built that lead to a game-high seven points early on, 23-16, but had trouble finding a comfort level against the Lancers.
Down 30-28 with just over five minutes to play in the first half, CBU began to make its push and closed out the final five minutes on a 9-2 run to take a 37-32 lead into the break. Asher scored five points in that span and Jasmine Sauser added the four others to complete the run.
“We played behind most of the first half, but we just stuck with it and I thought that showed our composure,” Olson said. “We have a lot of young players that show a lot of maturity out there.”
The second half opened with both sides trading buckets and the Sea Warriors ever so slightly cutting into the Lancers' lead, as a Danika Johnson layup brought Hawaii Pacific within four points, 47-43, with 14:16 to play.
From there, CBU started another 8-0 run that gave it the first double-digit lead of the night, 55-43. Jones did most of the scoring in that spurt by hitting two threes in about a two-minute span, while Sauser contributed with a layup.
The Sea Warriors struggled to climb back into the game but managed to slightly cut into the deficit here and there. They found themselves suffering setbacks at the hands of a series of CBU runs.
First, Hawaii Pacific pulled within 55-47 with 11:23 to play. A more than two-minute scoring drought was ended with a splash from three from Diaz. The Lancers scored the next four points from there with Asher hitting a free throw and Mihalko cashing in another three-pointer for a 62-47 lead off a Sauser assist with 6:52 to play.
Try as they might, the Sea Warriors could not bring their deficit back to single digits in the final minutes, only seeing the game get out of hand as time went on. CBU put the game out of reach with a 10-5 run that gave it a 72-55 lead, with a pair of Diaz threes serving as the book ends for the run, and 1:56 remaining.
“I'm just really proud with how the team played,” Olson said. “I thought we did a really good job on defense in the second half and that led to easier baskets in transition.”
While CBU lost both its regular-season games with Academy of Art, both were very close. Academy of Art posted a 74-66 victory in the matchup on its home court and just topped the Lancers in the Van Dyne Gym, 82-81. The Lancers hope to take the most meaningful game Saturday, though.
It will be more of the same when it comes to CBU's recipe for success Saturday.
“We had really good practice coming into the tournament,” Mihalko said, “so now we just have to come prepared and stay focused, especially on defense.”
