TURLOCK —
Alysa Valentine was loving the three-point line, and
Erika Larsen, Saturday night as the duo keyed the inside-out game in leading the Cal State Stanislaus women's basketball team over Cal State L.A., 67-60.
Valentine scored a career-high 23 points by nailing five three-pointers as the Warriors beat a streaking L.A. team to improve to 6-12 overall and 4-10 in the California Collegiate Athletic Association.
Valentine and head coach
Wayman Strickland also had Larsen to thank for a great effort by the redshirt sophomore. Larsen notched her first career double-double with 17 points and 14 rebounds as the 6-foot-3 center controlled the paint. Larsen was 7 of 13 shooting from the floor, all of them layups and many of those points came on offensive put-backs.
Riley Holladay also had an impressive game with a season-high 16 points with eight rebounds. Valentine, Larsen and Holladay accounted for 56 of the team's points on the night.
Cal State L.A. didn't have much of an answer inside with its tallest player listed at 6-foot-even. The Golden Eagles, winners of six of their last seven games and three straight, dropped to 9-8 overall and 8-5 in conference play.
Then, there's also little 5-foot-2 Valentine. The junior was on fire from long range and she kept shooting. Valentine ended up with 5 of 14 shooting from the three-point arch, which is also a career-high. She went 8 for 21 from the field in the game.
Trailing by six points early in the first half, it was Valentine who scored eight consecutive points to take over the game, giving the Warriors a 20-18 lead at 8:44. Moments later Larsen scored six straight points to cap a 8-0 Stanislaus run to make it a 28-20 game at 6:01. Those two spurts highlighted a 16-2 Warriors charge as their offense started clicking.
Cal State L.A., led by Chiara Dimarco's 15-point effort, did rally back in the second half, but the scoring trio and intense defense kept Stanislaus ahead. Another Valentine triple and a jumper by Holladay at 7:02 left to lay gave the Warriors a 10-point lead, 57-47. Larsen's layup at 5:50 gave the Warriors their biggest lead on the night at 11 (59-48).
In the end, Stanislaus, the CCAA's leader in three-point attempts and made, finished with seven three-pointers (Holladay had the other two) on 32 attempts. The Warriors also out-rebounded L.A. 45-39, including 19 offensive rebounds.
