Box Score Photo by: Tony Leon/ActionWestPhotography.com
LOS ANGELES, Calif. – The Whittier College Women's Basketball team pulled off what was perhaps their biggest win on the season Saturday night as they stunned Occidental College on the road 59-56 inside Rush Gymnasium.
Whittier has now won back-to-back games and improves to 6-13, 5-5 SCIAC and now sit 6th place in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) Standings.
The last time these two teams met the Tigers pulled off the 66-61 victory inside of the Graham Athletic Center on January 11, but Saturday, the Purple & Gold remained in the hunt for a SCIAC Post-Season Berth.
It came down to the final minute for the victor to emerge. Oxy had rallied to take a one-point lead on two different occasions inside of 3:00 minutes to play. With :19 seconds left Ana Youngblood (Berkeley, Calif.) came up big after being blocked gathering the offensive rebound and putting it back in for the go ahead basket.
Following an Oxy timeout, Tala Ismail would cough up the ball sending out all hopes for a comeback out the door. Emilee Dy (Chino Hills, Calif.) would then sink two free throws that would secure the win.
Whittier started off hot opening up the game with seven in a row. A Youngblood jumper and layup followed by a Cali Cubel (Oceanside, Calif.) jumper and free throw.
Oxy would storm back however and would regain the lead soon after as they would hold a two-point lead 13-11 at the end of the first quarter. Dy got hot in the second adding Whittier's first six points that leveled the game at 17-17. Oxy stopped the run and went back out in front but it wouldn't hold as an 8-0 run to close out the half would put WC back on top 27-26. During the spurt, Youngblood and Daniza Rodriguez (San Jose, Calif.) would add layups, while Emily Underwood (Nicholasville, KY) and Youngblood would sink jumpers.
The game would be deadlocked after the third quarter as Occidental would outscore Whittier 19-18 behind 10 points from Shariah Green. Cubel got the fourth started with a pair of free throws and Dy would add a jumper that made the score 49-45. Erin Matsumoto would keep the Tigers in the game with a triple soon after and they wouldn't go away as they would go in front 54-53 after layups from Dru Ishibashi and Matsumoto.
Dy would come down on the Poets next possession and add a huge pull up jumper that gave Whittier back the lead and after that the late game heroics would commence.
Dy finished with a season high 18 points on 8-of-13 shooting. Youngblood played huge inside as she poured in 16 with nine boards, while Cubel chipped in with 12.
Whittier shot 46% from the field and 78% from the charity stripe. They outrebounded Occidental 36-35 and outscored them in the paint 28-22, while outscoring their bench 25-10.
Whittier returns home this week on Wednesday, February 1 as they host Cal Lutheran University beginning at 7:00pm.
