LOS ANGELES - The Whittier College women's basketball team saw its season come to an end on Thursday evening at Rush Gymnasium as the Poets lost in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference semifinals to Occidental, 79-51, in front of a crowd of 400.

The Poets were led by Kourtney Zilbert who recorded her third straight double-double, ninth of the season, with a 17-point and 12-rebound evening.

The first half was controlled by the Tigers as they took a 36-19 lead into the intermission.

The Poets (16-10) scored the game's opening bucket on a layup by Tina Merlino but Occidental (21-5) ran off the next 16 points over a seven-minute span to take a 16-2 lead at the 12:52 mark.

Whittier ended the Tiger run with their first points in nearly nine-minutes when Merlino knocked in her second basket of the day. Occidental quickly answered with a three-pointer to make the score 19-4 with 10:50 to play in the half.

The purple and gold got back into the contest as they cut the Tiger lead to as few as eight-points when Ashley Vierra hit a three-pointer but once again Oxy answered with a run as it scored the game's next 11 points to stretch its advantage to 36-17.

Whittier got the Occidental lead down to 16 points at 45-29 but that would prove to be as close as the Poets would get.

The Tiger's Gillian Nugent dashed all hopes of a purple and gold rally when she connected on four-straight three-pointers on consecutive possessions to give Occidental a 63-37 lead with just over five minutes left in the game.

The Poets committed 25 turnovers for the game which includes 20 in the first half.

Vierra finished with 12 points as she was 3-for-6 from behind the arc.

Occidental advances to the SCIAC championship where they will host the third-seeded La Verne on Saturday evening. The Leopards defeated Redlands, 50-48.