Sports, Women's Basketball, Women's Sports

The right stuff: winning streak proves 49ers have what it takes

A 15-game winning streak has established the Long Beach State women’s basketball team as a top contender for the Big West Conference championship this season.

After a 90-85 home loss to Southern California in the third game of the season, senior guard Hallie Meneses said the way the 49ers looked after the game was an indication that the team had something special in the making.

“I just remember going into the locker room, and you could just feel the vibe of the team,” Meneses said. “I knew that there was something special because usually we just go on and say ‘next game.’ But when I saw everybody hurting, I knew that we didn’t like to lose, and we’re just going to compete.”

The streak began in the Pacific Northwest at the Great Alaskan Shootout tournament, as the 49ers defeated both Boise State and tournament host Alaska Anchorage. For the next two months, LBSU mowed down team after team making a statement to everyone that this team was a serious contender.

“We looked at our season schedule last spring,” head coach Jody Wynn said. “[We] looked around the locker room and knew that we had something special in the making.”

When Wynn first got together with the team in preparation for the 2014-15 season, she realized that even though the 49ers faced a daunting schedule, they had the proper pieces in play to put together a run like they did.

“What’s been such a blessing is having a group of women that accept accountability and responsibility to get better everyday,” Wynn said. “They want to be champions and so they have been easy to coach.”

Wynn credited the team with coming together and buying into the philosophy that defense wins championships. She the team was able to force turnovers and did of a better job of turning those opportunities into points.

“We knew that if we wanted to win a championship we needed to have a defensive mindset,” Wynn said.

LBSU’s defense excelled during the winning streak, limiting opponents to an average 55.7 points per game. The Beach leads the Big West in steals at 11.2 per game.

“Everyday they have all bought in to being a defensive minded team,” Wynn said. “Whereas last year and years before we maybe had a couple players that were defense first. This year they’re all defense first.”

After falling at home to USC in the Walter Pyramid, LBSU blistered through its nonconference schedule, knocking off major programs such as California, Florida Atlantic and Louisiana State.

“We still think that we should have won [against USC],” sophomore point guard Anna Kim said. “But it just gave us confidence to go up against Cal.”

The 49ers’ winning streak snapped on Saturday in the Walter Pyramid, a 67-52 loss to conference rival and reigning Big West champion Cal State Northridge. Kim said that just because the team’s streak ended does not mean they are going away anytime soon.

“The unfortunate loss to CSUN just makes us stronger,” Kim said. “Now we know that on any day, it can all be taken away from us. To have that disgusting feeling in our stomachs, I think it’s going to challenge us to try accomplish that Big West title.”

For Meneses, the 49ers’ recent path to success began in the summer when the team first got together. She said her teammates all shared the same competitive spirit and hunger for success that fueled Meneses as she entered her final season at The Beach.

“For me as a senior,” Meneses said. “I was excited for this season since the summer. That’s what I’ve been telling myself and the team is that I want it so bad. Everybody has their own spark but that was my motivation.”

With 11 games left to play before the Big West tournament begins, the team is moving on from the past and looking to improve. Kim said that the 49ers’ recent upswing is a resemblance of the team camaraderie, which is a quality that she thinks can help them attain their goal.

“[It shows] the potential of how good our team can be,” Kim said. “We played against some good teams. It’s not like it was Division III or low Division I teams. Yeah we made history in a sense, but I’m taking it just as a memory that this team gets along on and off the court and are all trying to achieve the same goal.”

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