Shooting 28% Isn’t a Solution for CSUN : Basketball: Matador women miss a chance for their first two-game winning streak since 1992 by falling to Cal State Dominguez Hills, 66-56.

The Cal State Northridge women’s basketball team did a lot of things well on Thursday night.

Except the most-important thing, which is to put the ball in the basket.

The Matadors played well on defense and created open shots on offense, but they made only 28% of them and lost, 66-56, to Cal State Dominguez Hills, a Division II school, in a nonconference game at Matador Gym.

“The problem for me is I have to find some system to get some points on the board,” Northridge Coach Michael Abraham said. “We got open looks at the basket and missed them, layups and missed them, free throws and missed them.

“In Division I basketball, those are shots you’ve got to make.”

One shot in particular will haunt the Matadors. Northridge, which trailed virtually the entire 40 minutes, was within 49-47 with 6 minutes 37 seconds to go in the game when point guard Tammie Mills stole the ball and broke downcourt.

She missed the uncontested layup.

“That definitely would have changed the tone of the game,” Mills said.

The Matadors then went into a scoring drought. A basket came with 1:23 left and by then the Toros (5-0) had a 58-52 lead.

Carrie Dormire scored 15 points for Northridge, all of then in the second half. Maureen Batiste added 14 points and 10 rebounds.

The Matadors (1-2), who beat Central Connecticut on Saturday, missed a chance for their first two-game winning streak since back-to-back victories on Dec. 21 and Dec. 29, 1992. They failed to get over .500 for the first time since they were 1-0 in 1989.

As if all that wasn’t damaging enough to Northridge’s spirits, the Matadors lost one of their top players, Pam Karbowski, who led the team in scoring for two games.

Karbowski crumbled to the floor on a scramble at the end of the first half. The American West Conference freshman of the year last season, Karbowski has a strained right hamstring and will not make the Matadors’ trip to Northern Arizona this weekend.

Karbowski was guarding Dominguez Hills’ Faye Hagan, who finished with 31 points and 17 rebounds.

“Our game plan was to stop Hagan,” Abraham said. “Well, 31 points and 17 rebounds later, we can all see how that worked out.”