WEST REGIONAL : UC Santa Barbara Stops Houston, 80-69

In its first appearance in the NCAA women’s tournament, UC Santa Barbara survived a rally by Houston to keep its dream season alive with an 80-69 victory in the first round Wednesday night.

A school-record Thunderdome crowd of 1,825 watched the Gauchos’ Cori Close put it away with eight free throws in the last 39 seconds.

“Finally, people realize we’re good and worth watching,” Santa Barbara senior forward Barbara Beainy said. “I wasn’t expecting 1,800 people to show up my freshman and sophomore year because we were boring. Now that we are exciting we deserve it.”

The Gauchos led by as many as 15 points in the second half, but the Cougars, third-place finishers in the Southwest Conference, drew within four points with 55 seconds left on Cynthia Jackson’s layup.

Houston missed its next four shots and was forced to foul.

Close, a junior guard, stepped to the free-throw line four times and made eight consecutive free throws.

“I think every day in practice we put ourselves in those situations,” Close said. “By that time you gotta do what you do every day in practice.”

It was a school-record ninth consecutive victory for the Gauchos and 17th in their last 18 games.

The Big West champions advance to the second round Saturday at Stanford, the top-seeded team in the West Regional.

With Beainy and center Becky Brown struggling on offense, guard Lisa Crosskey picked up the slack with 16 of her game-high 22 points in the first half.

Close, who made all 11 of her free throws, finished with 18 points, and Erika Kienast scored 14--eight from the free-throw line--and grabbed a team-high 10 rebounds.

Beainy missed 13 of 19 shots but finished with 15 points to become the second woman in Gaucho history to reach 1,500 points.