Defensive effort helps Cal Poly women’s basketball team hold off UC Santa Barbara

It might have been a little more interesting than Cal Poly would have liked, but the Mustangs’ women’s basketball team found a way to complete its home schedule on a positive note.

Three days removed from letting a 10-point second-half lead slip away against Long Beach State, Cal Poly used a balanced offense and an opportunistic effort defensively to defeat UC Santa Barbara 66-60 on Saturday afternoon.

A crowd of 1,418 filled Mott Athletics Center for the final time this season on a day when the Mustangs bid farewell to their five graduating seniors: Beth Balbierz, Lisa Marie Sanchez, Paige Brown, Heather Madrigal and Lindsey Wolf.

“We definitely want to be able to make improvements as we keep going,” head coach Faith Mimnaugh said. “We faced, obviously, a Long Beach State team that forces a lot of turnovers. We did a much better job today taking care of the ball, other than the first couple minutes.”

A strong second quarter defensively helped Cal Poly (14-14, 7-8 Big West) take a 13-point lead into halftime.

The Mustangs went on an 11-2 run over the final 5:06 to close the opening half. Sophomore guard Dynn Leaupepe connected on back-to-back 3-pointers from the right wing and found her twin sister, Lynn, for a third straight 3-pointer as the halftime buzzer sounded.

After committing seven turnovers in the first quarter, Cal Poly turned it over once during the decisive second period. Meanwhile, the Mustangs forced UC Santa Barbara (11-18, 8-7 Big West) into 24 turnovers for the game, its highest total over the past 12 outings.

“I think we were just really confident in ourselves and we really trusted each other to knock down the big shots,” said Dynn Leaupepe, who scored a game-high 20 points, grabbed six rebounds and had four steals in the victory.

Lynn Leaupepe added 13 points, five rebounds and four steals, and Balbierz contributed 14 points in the final home game of her career.

Junior forward Hannah Gilbert, who ranks second in the Big West in field goal percentage (53.4) and fourth in rebounding (8.6), played through noticeable pain to give the Mustangs eight points and four rebounds in 22 minutes.

The Morro Bay High graduate leads the team in scoring at 13 points per game, and Mimnaugh said Gilbert’s lower leg injury is “a chronic situation that continues to worsen.”

The Gauchos, who rolled to a 78-67 victory in the first meeting between the two teams back on Jan. 7, refused to go away quietly. They chipped away at Cal Poly’s 13-point lead to start the final period, pulling with 57-55 with 58 seconds remaining.

That’s when Balbierz made her team-leading 64th 3-pointer of the season to give the Mustangs some breathing room. Sanchez, Dynn Leaupepe and junior forward Amanda Lovely combined to go 6-for-6 at the free-throw line in the final 20 seconds to seal the victory.

“I thought that, again, defensively we followed the game plan,” Mimnaugh said. “Our kids were really smart about what they did on the court.”

The Mustangs are scheduled to close out the regular season next Saturday against second-place Hawaii in Honolulu.

The Big West Conference Tournament begins three days later, with the first two rounds being held at the Bren Events Center on the campus of UC Irvine.

Mimnaugh said the team plans to stay in Los Angeles when it returns from Hawaii and will practice Monday before its first-round game on Tuesday.

“It’s going to be challenging for us with the traveling,” Mimnaugh said. “But hopefully we’ll do a good job of trying to take care of our bodies this week and get back after it.”

This story was originally published February 27, 2016 at 5:37 PM with the headline "Defensive effort helps Cal Poly women’s basketball team hold off UC Santa Barbara."