The California Golden Bears women’s basketball team concluded their nonconference schedule with a 91-50 victory over Cal Poly at Haas Pavilion on Sunday. The win improved Cal’s record to 9-5 overall.
Lulu Twidale led the Bears, making five three-pointers, which moved her into third place on Cal’s all-time career triples list. This was also her fifth career game with at least five three-pointers. Cal forced a season-high 23 turnovers and recorded a season-high 25 assists against the Mustangs, who fell to 2-10.
Naya Ojukwu scored a season-best 16 points, shooting 7-of-8 from the field, and added five rebounds and two blocks. Both Twidale and Gisella Maul matched their career highs with six assists each. With this win, Cal extended its regular-season home nonconference winning streak to 19 games dating back to the previous season. The team’s 91 points were their second-highest total of the year.
In the first quarter, Ojukwu converted a three-point play during a 7-0 run that helped Cal take an early lead. The Bears held Cal Poly scoreless for more than four minutes and led 15-10 after one quarter following a late three-pointer by Twidale.
Cal increased its lead in the second quarter with three-point plays from Maul and Sakima Walker, going into halftime ahead by 12 points. In the third quarter, another run pushed the lead to as many as 20 points before Cal finished strong with a decisive fourth quarter.
Several bench players saw significant playing time, contributing a season-high 41 points off the bench and helping Cal score a season-high 50 points in the paint.
“I thought we had a good second half just challenging our team to play with energy and play to a certain standard every minute,” said head coach Charmin Smith. “We did some good things and were able to put together a good 40 minutes. I think everybody’s just working so hard. They bust their butts in practice all the time, trying to make us better, trying to make themselves better. So anytime we can have opportunities to go deep in the bench and give people more opportunities we want to take advantage of it. I thought they did extremely well. We scored 30 points in the fourth quarter, so I thought the bench was great.”
Vanessa McManus led Cal Poly with 15 points.
Cal will begin ACC conference play on Thursday when they travel to face North Carolina at 9 a.m. PT.
For continued updates on California women’s basketball, fans can follow @CalWBBall on Twitter/X, @CalWBBball on Instagram, or /CalWBBall/ on Facebook.
