SOU Women's Basketball Falls 73-67 to California Maritime
BOX SCORE
ASHLAND –
Southern Oregon missed 20 of its first 24 shots as California Maritime built a 23-point first-half lead, and the Raiders’ second-half run fell short in a 73-67 loss to the Keelhaulers in Game Three of the Flagship Inn Classic at Bob Riehm Arena.
The Raiders fell one win shy of matching the best start in program history, dropping to 8-1 with the loss. Southern Oregon returns to action tomorrow night, playing Warner at 5:30 p.m. The Keelhaulers improve to 3-3 with the win and will play Oregon Tech at 1:30 p.m. tomorrow.
Josi McDermott led SOU with 17 points, while Krysten Copeland added 16 points and eight rebounds. Sabrina Domingo’s 18 points for California Maritime led all scorers, and Alexsis Brown added 15 points for the Keelhaulers.
California Maritime scored the first seven points and built its largest lead of the game late in the first half at 36-13. The Raiders used an 11-2 run to pull within 14, but a Domingo three-pointer just before the buzzer pushed the CMA lead back to 17 at the break. The Keelhaulers scored eight of the first nine points of the second half to push their lead back over 20 at 49-27.
Southern Oregon again made a run that looked like it might pull the Raiders back into the game, using an 11-3 stretch to make it 52-38, but CMA reclaimed the momentum with a seven-point streak. The Raiders responded with a nine-point streak of their own, but four missed free throws within that stretch prevented SOU from pulling even closer with just under eight minutes remaining.
The Raiders slowly worked their way back into the game and Copeland hit a layup with 3:19 to play to pull SOU within 10 for the first time since the opening minutes of the first half. Free throws by Copeland and Nalani Hernandez made it an eight-point game with 1:50 remaining. McDermott hit a layup to make it 71-65 with less than one minute to play, and she made a pair of free throws to pull SOU within five with 16 seconds remaining. But CMA made a free throw in the final seconds and the Raiders’ comeback fell short in the 73-67 loss.
California Maritime hit 57.7 percent from the field (15-of-26) in the first half and 47.9 percent overall in the game (23-of-48), while the Raiders struggled to a 24.1 first-half shooting percentage (7-of-29) and finished at 33.3 percent for the game (23-of-69). Free throws cost the Raiders, as SOU made only 20 of 35 attempts from the charity stripe (57.1 percent), while CMA made 21 of 26 shots at the line (80.8 percent).