HONOLULU — The UC Davis women's basketball team made good on the adage, "defense wins championships," on Saturday night, holding host Hawai'i to just five second half field goals — including only two in the fourth quarter — en route to a 54-46 victory and the program's fifth consecutive outright Big West Conference regular season title at SimpliFi Arena at the Stan Sheriff Center in Honolulu.
Improving to 10-2 overall on the year and 9-1 in league play with Saturday's victory, the defending conference tournament champions earned the No. 1 seed for this year's event and will face either eighth-seeded UC Riverside or ninth-seeded Cal State Fullerton in the quarterfinals on Wednesday (March 10) at 11 a.m. PT at the Michelob Ultra Arena at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas, Nev.
More information on the bracket is available on the Big West Conference website by
clicking here.
Down by two at halftime after Kasey Neubert beat the buzzer for the Rainbow Wahine (8-7, 7-6), the Aggies opened the third quarter with a vengeance, scoring the first six points of the period and 12 of the first 13 to take a nine-point, 39-30, lead midway through the quarter.
Hawai'i would never come closer than four points the rest of the way as UC Davis led by as many as 11 points on two occasions in the fourth as the Rainbow Wahine missed their first 10 shots in the period before Olivia Davies drained a three-pointer with 2:26 remaining. Hawai'i wouldn't make another field goal until Davies drained another triple at the buzzer with the game out of reach.
Overall, the Rainbow Wahine were held to just 26 percent from the field and 4-of-20 (.200) from beyond the arc for the game — the third time this season an Aggie opponent has been held to under 30 percent from the field and the eighth time under that bar from three-point range.
Sophomore
Evanne Turner shared game-high honors with 13 points on 4-of-8 shooting, including three, three-pointers, while senior
Cierra Hall added 12 points and four rebounds. Fresh off her near triple-double on Friday, junior
Sage Stobbart finished with 12 points, nine rebounds, and four more blocks to give her 13 in the two-game series in Honolulu.
After setting the school single-game record with nine swats on Friday, Stobbart moved past Ellen Porshneva (2003-06, 2007-08) and into a tie with current associate head coach
Des Abeyta for seventh on the all-time list with 87 career blocked shots. Meanwhile, her 32 blocks are just seven shy of her 29-game total from all of last year, which ranked 10th on the school's single-season chart.
Senior guard
Mackenzie Trpcic added eight points, eight rebounds, and seven assists against only two turnovers on the night, while junior
Kayla Konrad capped the scoring with nine points and four rebounds of her own.
UC Davis has qualified for the Big West's postseason event every year since joining the league in 2007-08, making the tournament championship game six times in that span (2008, 2010, 2011, 2016, 2018, and 2019) and winning the tournament title twice (2011 and 2019).
Against their possible quarterfinal opponents, the Aggies are 4-1 against UC Riverside in the tournament, winning the last three postseason meetings with the Highlanders, while UC Davis and Cal State Fullerton have never met in the Big West Tournament.
The Aggies' five consecutive conference titles is tied for the longest such run of league crowns in school history, joining the 1995-99 teams which won four straight Northern California Athletic Conference titles and the California Collegiate Athletic Association championship in their first year in the league. However, UC Davis' current run marks the first time the Aggies have won five straight outright league championships after the Aggies shared the 1997-98 NCAC title.
ABOUT UC DAVIS
Over 700 student-athletes across 25 intercollegiate athletics teams, following the addition of equestrian and women's beach volleyball in 2018, represent the fifth-ranked public school in the nation.
Centrally located between San Francisco, Lake Tahoe and the Napa Valley, UC Davis is known nationwide as a leader in Title IX gender equity and leadership, ranks annually in the top 10 in diversity and students' social mobility and offers an unrivaled student-athlete experience that features the ideal combination of elite academics, Division I athletics and personal growth.
UC Davis is uncommonly committed to preparing student-athletes for life after graduation with Aggie EVO — an innovative student-athlete outcomes program that helps young women and men develop passions, gain real-world experience, and enjoy a successful launch to full-time employment or graduate school. Through Aggie EVO, Intercollegiate Athletics provides unmatched resources and a vast network of working professionals to ensure post-graduation success for its student-athletes.
