Santa Barbara Reaches Final Again

UC Santa Barbara positioned itself for a sixth consecutive Big West tournament championship Friday with an 83-65 victory over Long Beach State before 1,061 at the Anaheim Convention Center.

Led by forward Kayte Christensen’s 18 points, the top-seeded Gauchos (24-5), who led, 36-28, at halftime, had no trouble recording their 17th consecutive Big West postseason victory, and their 20th consecutive victory this season.

Few Big West teams have felt the Gauchos’ steamroller effect quite as much as fourth-seeded Long Beach (16-13), which has lost its last 21 meetings with Santa Barbara and has had its season ended by Santa Barbara in the last four conference tournaments.

The script seemed familiar: Long Beach got a quick 11-6 lead until Santa Barbara slowed the game, used a 15-2 run to take a 21-13 lead with 9:07 left in the first half, and spent the rest of the game pulling away.

The 49ers, outrebounded, 41-35, and held to 36.4% shooting, appeared so visibly downcast at times that Coach Dallas Bolla pulled four starters off the floor early in the second half.

“We had talked about wanting to give them our best game,” Bolla said. “The frustration is we didn’t do that. There were times we were focused, and other times we made lots of mistakes.”

Christensen said her team took note of the 49ers’ lowered heads and sagging shoulders.

“We never expect Long Beach to cave,” Christensen said. “But when we saw their heads down we told ourselves to keep the pressure on.”

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Pacific 64, Riverside 47--The third-seeded Tigers came to the tournament not wanting to be eliminated in the first round, the way they had been four of the last five seasons.

After wearing down an undersized Highlander team, Pacific (19-10) finds itself in the tournament championship game for the first time since 1995.

“I’m so proud,” Coach Sherri Murrell said. “Every time we’ve played Santa Barbara we’ve been in [the game]. I think tomorrow will be a great finale. If we can play defense like today, we could give them problems.”

Pacific, which led, 33-29, at the half, closed out second-seeded Riverside’s first Division I and Big West season with a 48-31 rebounding margin, including a 19-9 edge on the offensive end, to compensate for its 39.1% shooting.

Nancy Dinges led Pacific with 19 points. Another key was the defense of Dolinda Meeker, who limited Riverside’s top scorer Amy Houchens to one field goal and four points.

Riverside is 16-13.