Grambling No Match for 49ers : CSLB Women Roll to 108-59 Win in Tournament Final

Cal State Long Beach women’s basketball team came into the season ranked No. 2. After two losses, it dropped to No.9. There has been much talk of why this team was not going to be as good as last season’s.

After the 49ers won the Dial tournament Saturday night and evened their record at 2-2, there are still no answers.

There is this one favorable comparison to last season: Long Beach still knows how to bury a weaker opponent. By beating Grambling, 108-59, before 1,260 fans at the University Gym, the 49ers are well on their way to matching last season’s average winning margin of 23 points.

“I hate to use Grambling as a victim, but we needed a game like this,” Long Beach Coach Joan Bonvicini said. “We needed to get our confidence and we needed to run.”

They did all of that in winning the tournament.

The 49ers led, 56-29, at halftime, and the Tigers did not recover. The second half was boringly repetitive. Grambling (3-3) was so overmatched that it was difficult to reasonably judge how well Long Beach played. They led by as many as 52 points and that was with all five starters on the bench.

The substitutes played well. Dana Wilkerson, a sophomore, came into the game with 15 minutes left, when Bonvicini pulled her starters. Wilkerson took over. She had 14 points in the half and missed only one shot.

Also recharged was Penny Toler, who scored 22 points and shot well, at last, making 10 of 14 attempts.

The other Long Beach guard, Traci Waites, was superb, scoring 18 points while handing off 11 assists. More significant for Long Beach was the way Waites led her team. She was named the tournament’s most valuable player.

For Grambling, it was a tough loss to end a tough trip.

“We knew exactly what they were going to do; we sort of let things get away from us,” Grambling Coach Patricia Cage Bibbs. “We knew what we were coming into.”

But they didn’t know how to get out of it.

The 49ers went on a tear in the first half. Their fast break was fueled by turnovers. Grambling committed 18 turnovers, and Long Beach had 11 steals in the half. The Tigers had 33 turnovers in the game.

Less than 7 minutes into the game, the 49ers had a 27-6 lead, and Toler, who had not shot well in Friday night’s game, was hot. Toler scored 10 of the 49ers’ 27 points and had 18 in the half.

The Tigers tried everything but could not match the 49ers’ skills. Perhaps they were tired.

They have been on the road since Nov. 30, traveling by bus.

Their 5-game trip began in Lawrence, Kan., at the Jayhawk Dial tournament. The trouble there began in the first game against Iowa. The game was a wild affair, by all accounts.

Grambling lost.

Then it was on to Springfield, Mo., to play Southwest Missouri State. That game was memorable in its hockey-like aspects. Finally, with 1:47 left in the game, Bibbs pulled her team off the floor, in what she saw as a peacekeeping move.

“I did what I had to do,” she said. “The game was out of control. Someone was going to go to the hospital.”

Grambling lost.

Then the team drove 30 hours straight to Long Beach, coming into town last Wednesday, arriving just about the time the Santa Ana winds kicked up. Somewhere in Riverside, wind met bus and bus’ windshield blew out.

Welcome to paradise.

“That about scared us to death,” Bibbs said. “Everybody wants to come to California, but no one told us about this.”

Worse yet was the loss of Tarcha Hollis, the Tigers’ leading scorer. Hollis fell hard in the first half, injuring her wrist. She was taken to Long Beach Community Hospital for X-rays.

Grambling lost again.

The team leaves this morning at 6 a.m., driving straight through.

In the consolation game Saturday, Nebraska (5-2) beat New Mexico State (3-4), 83-66.

Tournament Notes

Named to the all-tournament team were Vicki Evans of New Mexico State, Kim Harris and Amy Stephens of Nebraska, Tarcha Hollis of Grambling, Penny Toler of Long Beach.