ORANGE – The women of Chapman University took a tough loss on Sunday, falling behind late and eventually going down to a 70-60 decision against the visiting Wartburg Knights.
Julia Strand led the Panthers off the bench, posting a double-double with 18 points and 11 rebounds.
Sammie Inana and Brittany McPherson each scored nine points for Chapman, with McPherson also grabbing eight rebounds. Inana had three boards.
Katie Kubo dished out four assists and had three rebounds, while Kylee Ishibashi pitched in an assist and a rebound in her six minutes off the bench.
Strand shined defensively as she led the team with three blocks and three steals. Although her double-double just wasn’t enough to put the Panthers ahead as Wartburg junior guard Macy Harris posted a double-double of her own with 16 points and 10 rebounds. She scored half of her points from the free throw line.
The Panthers struggled beyond the arc and shot 1-14 from the three-point line. Senior guard Julianna Campas hit Chapman’s only three-pointer late in the second quarter, making it a six-point deficit entering the second half.
The Knights went 11-28 from beyond the arc.
After falling behind by as much as 17 points in the fourth, the Panthers brought it back to a five-point game with 30 seconds left, but struggled to find another basket as a few late trips to the free throw line for the Knights brought the lead back to ten points, securing the win for Wartburg.
The Panthers are off until Dec. 31, when they host Amherst.
– Courtesy Chapman Athletics
Masuno’s Game-High 14 Not Enough for CMS
Second-ranked Whitman used a 12-0 run spanning the first and second quarters to take a 23-11 lead, and held off several comeback attempts by Claremont-Mudd-Scripps the rest of the way, to take a hard-fought 64-50 win on Sunday afternoon at UC Santa Cruz.
Austyn Masuno kept Whitman from pulling away in the first half by scoring all eight CMS points in the second quarter on a basket and 6-6 shooting from the free throw line, but Whitman was still able to hold a 34-19 lead at the break.
CMS continued to battle, and used an 8-0 run in the third quarter to cut a 40-22 deficit down to 40-30. Elizabeth Howell-Egan started the run with a three-pointer, Grace Florendo followed with another three-pointer and Kayla Ishibashi capped it off with a jumper off a Howell-Egan pass. However, the Blues bounced back with an 8-0 run of their own to stretch the lead back to 18.
The Athenas again got the lead down to 11, as Masuno converted a layup off a Jocelyn Song assist, and Eliza Friend had a basket and foul shot to make it 48-35 after three quarters. Masuno tallied the first basket of the fourth to cap a 7-0 run to close the deficit to 48-37. After the Blues opened a lead back up, Ava Grey had a three-pointer with 3:12 left to make it 58-47, and Masuno hit two foul shots to cut it to 59-49 with 2:12 remaining, but that was as close as the Athenas could come.
Masuno led CMS with 14 points, while Ishibashi had eight, Friend added seven and Sadie Heckman chipped in with six, as CMS shot 6-12 from three-point territory and 14-16 from the foul line.
With the win, Whitman improves to 10-0 on the season, while CMS slips to 3-8, capping off the 2021 calendar year with a difficult road trip against two teams with a combined 17-1 record, after falling to host UC Santa Cruz (7-1) on Saturday.
CMS will have 17 days off before returning to action on Jan. 5, when it gets back to SCIAC play with a home game against Caltech.
– Courtesy CMS Athletics