SEATTLE – Andrea Lalum could have spoken for the rest of her Washington Husky teammates when asked about her 0-for-11 start shooting from the floor Friday night.
“I couldn’t throw a rock in the ocean,” she said. “But there’s always tomorrow.”
The Huskies themselves got off to a rocky start against Cal before 3,927, but got it together in the second half to beat the Golden Bears 65-54 for their first Pacific-10 Conference victory.
Shaking off a dreadful start, Washington (1-2 Pac-10, 8-4 overall) blew up Cal’s offense in the second half and led by as many as 21 points in the second to secure an important win.
Lalum was an important part of Washington’s revival, scoring eight of her nine of her points in the second half. But it was the Huskies’ pressure defense that made the Bears wilt after the half.
Cal, which came into the game shooting better than 46 percent from the floor, best in the Pac-10, was just 10-for-29 after halftime and finished the game with 20 turnovers.
Washington’s guards, especially Giuliana Mendiola, Gioconda Mendiola and Cameo Hicks, gave their Cal counterparts more than they could handle. Meanwhile, Lalum, Breanne Watson and Maggie O’Hara plugged the interior.
“They definitely play a more physical game than we’ve played,” Cal coach Caren Horstmeyer said. “Then in the second half, we just sort of went out of our offense. If we stay within our offense, we’ll get open shots.”
Shots were there, but only Washington knocked them down, and then only in the second half. After scoring a season-low 23 points before halftime, the Huskies started the second half blazing, attacking the basket, turning up the defense a couple of notches and forcing turnover after turnover.
“I told them to stay with it and they you’ll have those nights,” UW coach June Daugherty said. “I thought we were dribbling the ball offensively, so we wanted to (change the offensive scheme) so we could hit the first open player and get back into our system. Once we started cutting more, we got a lot more open looks inside.”
The Huskies resembled little the tentative, careless lot they were in the first half.
Defensively, Washington got back to the harassing, pressure team it showed in preseason. The Huskies forced turnovers, rebounded with gusto and regularly got a hand in a shooting Golden Bear’s face.
Offensively, the Huskies took better care of the ball and moved it quicker, which, combined with the defensive adjustments, gave them better shots.
Washington scored 13 of the first 16 points of the second half, with Hicks and Mendiola setting the tone of the game with two putback shots apiece. After being outrebounded by five in the first 20 minutes, the Huskies held a 27-16 advantage after halftime.
“They picked up the intensity and we told our team at halftime that they were going to come at us on the O-boards,” Horstmeyer said. “First two possessions, O-boards, putbacks. Then we get back on our heels a little bit and they get after us. They did a great job in the second half.”
Giuliana Mendiola led the Huskies with 14 points. She was the only Husky to score in double figures. Nihan Anaz led the Bears with 14, just five in the second half.
Even after they were down 15-4, missed their first eight shots from the floor and turned the ball over five times in the first 7 1/2 minutes, the Golden Bears stormed back to take a five-point lead at one stage of the first half.
That’s because the Huskies duplicated Cal’s earlier ineptitude. In a six-minute stretch, Washington gave up 16 straight points, missed nine straight shots from the floor and turned the ball over five times.
Anaz came up with two straight steals from the Mendiola sisters at one point and scored on layups each time.
Before you could say “yuckarama,” Cal had a 20-15 advantage with 3:15 left in the first half. From there, the Huskies tied it at 23 on a layup by Breanne Watson and took a 23-22 lead on a free throw by Lalum before Olga Volkova put the Bears ahead with a layup with two seconds remaining.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
