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Gauchos Two Points Short in First Round

By STEVE HENSON
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From Staff and Wire Reports

Despite slowing the nation’s leading scorer, UC Santa Barbara fell to Southwest Missouri State, 72-70, Friday night in a West Regional first-round game at Fort Collins, Colo.

Jackie Stiles made only five field goals and scored 18 points, eight below her average, but she made two free throws with 33.9 seconds to play to give the Lady Bears a 69-68 lead.

Erin Buescher, the game’s leading scorer with 27 points, scored on a drive from the high post to return the advantage to UCSB with 22 seconds left.

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Carly Deer countered with a layup 11 seconds later for Southwest Missouri State then stole a pass on the Gauchos’ next possession, was fouled and made a free throw.

The Gauchos (26-4), the Big West Conference champions, were riding a 21-game winning streak.

“It’s been a long time since we lost and you’d think we’d forget what it feels like,” Santa Barbara Coach Mark French said. “But we didn’t forget. It hurts.”

Southwest Missouri State had 17 turnovers in the first half but only five in the second half

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Steve Henson

Steve Henson is a reporter with the Fast Break sports team at the Los Angeles Times. He previously served as an assistant editor and reporter in the Sports department. Henson was a leader in digital-only newsrooms from 2007-19 as a senior editor and columnist at Yahoo Sports and as senior editor at the USA Today Sports Media Group. This is his second stint at The Times, having covered the Dodgers and UCLA as well as doing enterprise, investigative and features writing from 1985-2007. Henson was awarded first place in sports features in 2021 by the L.A. Press Club and has been honored several times by the Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) and also by the California News Publishers Assn., the Football Writers Assn. of America and U.S. Basketball Writers Assn.

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