Bump In The Road

Saturday, March 5

Irvine, Calif.

4:30 PM

California Baptist University

28-2

Azusa Pacific

27-3

Cal Baptist

Azusa Pacific

Photo by: Jacob Gonzalez

3/5/2016 6:56:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score

By: Sammi Sheppard, Director of Sports Information

IRVINE, Calif. — For the third-straight time, No. 3 California Baptist University advanced to the PacWest Tournament Championship. Unfortunately for the Lancers, the ball didn't bounce in their favor once again as they fell 75-58 to No. 18 Azusa Pacific.

"I thought APU played really well and I did not think we played very well," said head coach Jarrod Olson. "They probably had a lot to do with it, but I think we had a little to do with that, as well. They played better than us today. It's disappointing, but it's kind of how basketball works."

CBU drops to 28-2 with the loss, while the Cougars improve to 27-3. Still, the Lancers lost the conference tournament championship last year and it lit a fire under them heading into their first NCAA Division II Championship appearance. CBU went on a tear, taking down ranked opponent after ranked opponent to make it to the championship game.

Cassidy Mihalko led all scorers with 23 points to pick up all-tournament recognition. Kamille Diaz joined her fellow junior on the team, despite not scoring her usual points.

"APU is good on defense, I struggled to get my shot off," said Diaz. "It was pretty tough, it just didn't work out."

Courtney Nelson followed Mihalko with 11 points, while Erin Asher and Megan Frerer each chipped in eight.

It was back-and-forth action in the first quarter, with each team getting a chance to hold a lead. The Cougars scored the first five points, but Mihalko's 11^th point of the night gave the Lancers an 11-10 lead about halfway through the first period.

CBU came into the second quarter down 18-17, but Nelson scored a jumper in the first 10 seconds to put her team back in front. APU tied things up at 30-30, but ended the half on an 8-0 spurt to hold a 38-30 upper hand at the break.

The Lancers tried to battle back into it, but shots wouldn't fall in favor of CBU.

"I don't think we handled ourselves well in a stretch where we didn't score," said Olson. "I think we scoreboard watched a little bit, noticing the lead was getting bigger instead of focusing on playing the game."

Heading into the final 10 minutes of the game, CBU had a big gap to close, trailing 54-38. Shots still weren't falling for the Lancers with five minutes left to play.

Still, CBU turned on the high press to try to force turnovers and picked up its speed of play on offense.

Mihalko grabbed her own offensive rebound and banked in the putback, but the Lancers couldn't seem to get stops on defense to put a run together. Asher drained a three to cut the margin under 20 points, 71-54, but there was only two minutes left to play.

It wasn't enough for CBU, however, as the Cougars won the title with the 75-58 result.

"There are a lot of things we can take away from today," said Olson. "I don't think we did a good job moving the ball. We just didn't play very well. Hopefully we'll be able to work on some things this week and show up at the NCAA Division II tournament a little bit better for it. I feel like both of the times we played APU, we've come out better for it so hopefully we can use it for next week."

"We can't hang our heads," added Mihalko. "It's a little bump in the road. We usually bounce back and respond to losing pretty well, so that's what we'll try to do."

The Lancers find out where they will go for the NCAA Division II West Regional Tournament on Sunday at 7:00 p.m. The NCAA Division II Selection Show will be aired on www.ncaa.com/live with eight teams competing for a spot in the Elite 8 tournament, held March 23-26 back in Sioux Falls, S.D.

"I'm excited we still have more basketball to play," said Diaz. "There are a lot of teams that don't have this opportunity. To have another game is awesome. I'm ready to go out there and just play basketball."