The California Lutheran University women’s basketball team took on Chapman University on Feb. 16. The thrilling senior night for guard Chelsea Jacoby ended 84-82 in double-overtime in favor of the Panthers.
“It’s always an emotional time when it’s your last guaranteed home game,” Head Coach Lindsay Goldblatt said. “I thought that everyone rallied around her and we went out fighting, regardless of everything that happened today.”
The first quarter was closely contested by the Regals. The Regals took an early 6-4 lead on a layup from junior post Haley Hodgson. The Panthers finished the quarter up 15-12. Junior guard Jessica Salottolo and Hodgson had the most points at four a piece at the end of the quarter.
The second quarter was full of continuous back-and-forth scoring possessions between the Regals and the Panthers. Chapman ended the half with a half-court shot by freshman guard Katelyn Serizawa, to put the Panthers ahead 35-32 going into halftime.
After the first four minutes of play in the third the Regals held the lead at 40-39. The Panthers took the lead after sophomore guard, Jaime Hum-Nishikado made a 3-pointer to put the score at 42-40. Chapman was able to hold the lead going into the fourth at 48-44.
After two minutes of play in the fourth quarter, the Regals put a lone two points on the board to make the score 48-46. The score stayed tied for most of the quarter with the Panthers only scoring 12 points and the Regals scoring 14, to make the score an even 60 at the final buzzer.
“I think we honestly gave it our all. We fought, our coach was telling us ‘fight, fight, fight’ that was the message of the night, until the end,” junior guard Sofia Cruz said. “It went back and forth and was an exciting game.”
In the overtime period, neither team led by more than two points the entire time. With 33 seconds left in the game the Panthers made one of two free throws to put them up 70-68.
The Regals got the ball back and Cruz was fouled and went to the line with ten seconds left in overtime. Cruz was able to make one out of two, cutting the Panther lead to one. Hodgson was able to get the rebound and made a layup, putting the Regals up by one with nine seconds left, putting the score at 71-70. The Panthers were able to make a free throw to tie the score at 71 with no time left. This sent the game into double overtime.
The second overtime was just as close as the rest of the game. The Regals came out hot and scored the first four points and stopped the Panthers from scoring for the first two minutes, putting the score at 75-71.
Cal Lutheran extended their lead to three with just 26 seconds left on the clock. With the victory in sight, junior guard for Chapman Megan Charles made a 3-pointer to tie the score at 82. The Regals were unable to convert and turned over the ball. The Panthers were able to make a layup with three seconds left and won the game 84-82.
“I think we fought hard and never gave up. We did struggle a little in the first half but I think we came together in the second half,” Salottolo said. “They had the ball at the last second and they made a good play. I thought overall we played together as a team and fought until the very end.”
Salottolo led the Regals with 20 points and Jacoby had a double-double with 16 points and 11 rebounds. Hodgson also had a double-double on the night with 14 points and 11 rebounds. Cruz finished with nine points, six assists and six rebounds.
“Next time we are going to go all out, we have some stuff that we need to work on that we didn’t execute well defensively against them,” Cruz said. “We need to fix a couple things, have the same effort and go all out.”
The Regals will play the Panthers again at the Harold Hutton Sports Center at Chapman in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Postseason tournament.
Courtney Sooy
Senior Writer
Published February 24th, 2016