The Long Beach State women’s basketball team will make a 50-mile drive north to take on its local foe, the Matadors of Cal State Northridge in a Big West conference showdown Thursday.
After dropping its last two games, Long Beach (7-17, 4-7 Big West) is currently locked into sixth place in conference, and looking to move up in the standings against second seeded CSUN (13-12, 7-4 Big West).
In the last battle between these two squads at the Walter Pyramid, the 49ers were unable to get any sort of rhythm going as they lost 51-37.
The Beach shot a lowly 21.3 percent from the field, something that needs to addressed, as the 49ers haven’t shot above 35 percent from the field in the last three games.
This was largely in part because of the Matadors’ two bigs patrolling the paint, junior Lauren Shymkewicz and senior Channon Fluker, denying the 49ers clean looks the whole game.
“Northridge does a good job with their big line up of forcing you to take perimeter shots,” head coach Jeff Cammon said.
If the 49ers can work the ball inside by using the devastating handles of sophomore Shanaijah Davison, straight line drives and knack for distributing by freshman Justina King, and sharp-shooting by sophomore forward Naomi Hunt, the 49ers have a good chance to rewrite the storyline of their season.
“We have to be more comfortable and aggressive attacking the basket,” Cammon said. “We got to do a better job of getting to the free throw line and putting a little bit more pressure.”
UC Riverside is currently two wins ahead of Long Beach, and a win over CSUN would put the team in reaching distance of securing a top four seed in the Big West conference, locking up a first round bye in the tournament.