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Date Posted: 09:00:28 02/09/02 Sat
Author: Jon Ralston
Subject: Tiger Women get throttled by Gauchos

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Originally Published Friday, February 8, 2002
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Gauchos run streak to 13 over Tigers

By Rick Brewer

Record Staff Writer

The Tigers have a solid corp of sophomores, but the Gauchos may have the freshmen of the year.

Kristen Mann, a rookie from Santa Ana, scored a career-high 27 points and Mia Fisher, a youngster from Pleasanton, had 16 as five-time defending Big West Conference-champion UC Santa Barbara defeated University of the Pacific 83-66 on Friday night at Spanos Center.

A crowd of 1,227 watched the Gauchos' 13th consecutive win over the Tigers, and second in a week. It followed UCSB's 67-58 win at Thunderdome on Feb. 1.

On both recent occasions, Pacific held the lead at halftime. In fact, it was the fourth consecutive game between the teams that the Tigers have been ahead at intermission.

"It's the same old story. I'm not usually a down person, but it's so frustrating being in the games, but not being able to win them," Pacific coach Sherri Murrell said.

"I really don't know what the reason is that we play better in the second half," Gauchos coach Mark French said. "Maybe it's because of our tradition, the team doesn't get rattled and knows it will make a run."

Although Pacific tried just about every combination of defense and nearly all available personnel against Mann, the Tigers simply couldn't contain the 6-foot-2 swingman. She maneuvered for inside layups and converted baseline jumpers. Mann hit her free throws (6-of-7) and had a 3-pointer.

And, importantly, her 16 points took over the game in the second 20 minutes, when the Gauchos needed her most. She led UCSB to a 61.5 percent shooting percentage (16-of-26) in the final stanza.

"We weren't worried at halftime," Mann said. "We just felt that if we could execute better we'd be fine. I felt like we got some better looks in the second half, and were able to make the shots."

Part of that had to do with French's decision not to run as many plays. Instead of calling sets in the half-court, the 15th year coach let his team create through a motion offense.

"I've learned that when you have players, you should let them play once in a while," he said.

That seemed to confound the Tigers, who did a smart job of defending in the first half, but didn't know where tobe or who to guard in the second.

"Mentally we were ready to play them. We knew that this was a beatable team, much more so than in previous years," said Tigers guard Dolinda Meeker, who scored ninie points and had six rebounds. "And, we emphasized coming out strong in the second half. But the little things we did right in the first half, we didn't do right in the second half and that hurt us."

Another factor that hurt Pacific was the almost nonexistent play of center Gillian d'Hondt. Held scoreless in the first half, d'Hondt finished with nine points and nine rebounds. Few had any real impact.

Murrell credited that with inconsistent and poor officiating.

"I blame that on the fact that we got the ball inside, they fouled us and they weren't called," Murrell said. "We did not get rewarded for our play inside."

Not only weren't the Tigers rewarded, they were blamed. Pacific was called for seven offensive fouls, mostly when trying to establish inside position.

As handy as might be to point the finger at Marianne Karp, Enola Reynolds and Jay Schweitzer, it didn't help that Pacific was a paltry 12-of-34 (35.3 percent) from the field in the second half. Selena Ho (16 points) hit a couple of long 3-pointers and Nancy Dinges (15) hit two jumpers from the baseline, but that was about it.

Meanwhile, UCSB found its collective shooting stroke from the field and the foul line, and turned this close, playoff-intense game into a deceptive blowout in the final minute.

* To reach reporter Rick Brewer, phone 546-8292 or e-mail rbrewer@recordnet.com

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