UCSB women advance to semifinals 73-50

The UC Santa Barbara women punched their ticket in to the semifinals of the Big West Conference Tournament in Anaheim. The Gauchos beat Long Beach State 73-50 on Thursday afternoon for their season-best seventh straight win.

UCSB trailed for much of the first half. The Gauchos took their first lead of the game on a Meagan Williams bucket with 8:19 to go in the half and took the lead for good on an Emilie Johnson jumper with about 6 minutes to play in the half. UCSB led 33-27 after the first twenty minutes and extended the lead at the start of the second half.

UCSB was led by Meagan Williams, who followed up yesterday's 24 point performance with 22 points against the 49ers. Emilie Johnson added 18 points. Santa Ynez High graduate Ariana Gnekow, a former walk-on, scored 11 points in the win. After nearly recording a triple-double in their opening win over Pacific, Mekia Valentine pulled down 19 rebounds to go along with her 11 points.
After setting a tournament record with 8 blocked shots yesterday, Valentine fell one shy of tying the record for most rebounds in a tournament game today.

"Everyone keeps saying this is the Gaucho team that we've been waiting for. But this is the gauchos team that we've been all along. I just think that now we are clicking and we all bought in to it in the beginning but we weren't sure quite what we were buying in to and I think that we know for sure now," said Valentine, after the Gauchos' seventh straight win.

UCSB held Long Beach State to just 29% shooting from the floor.

The Gauchos will take on top seeded UC Davis in the semifinals on Friday at 12pm in Anaheim. They are in search of their 12th Big West Tournament title in the last 14 years.

The Cal Poly women, the number two seed, will play UC Riverside in the semifinals on Friday immediately after the UCSB/UCD game. This is the first time the Mustangs received the second seed in the Tournament's history. The game should start around 2:30 pm on Friday. Cal Poly and UCR split the regular season series.

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