Jessica Fontenette enjoyed a career night with 15 points, six assists and five steals Friday against Western Washington.
BOX SCORE
LA JOLLA, Calif. — Twenty minutes of inspired basketball and a career night from junior guard
Jessica Fontenette (Corona/Bishop Amat) wasn't quite enough to continue the Cal State Monterey Bay women's basketball team's postseason run. The Otters erased a 14–point halftime deficit before Western Washington came back at the end to pull out a 65–58 victory Friday night in the NCAA Division II West Region Quarterfinal at UCSD's RIMAC Arena.
WWU (22–7) advances to play the winner of Friday's late game between UCSD and Chico State. CSUMB's season ends with a CCAA Tournament Championship and a 21–9 record.
Just six days after scoring a career–high 15 points in CSUMB's CCAA Tournament clinching win over Cal State L.A., Fontenette went nova with another bright outing. She once again scored 15 points while matching her career high with five steals and just missing her career high (7) with six assists.
Fontenette, however, gave credit for the night to the team.
“We came out slow and it's hard to come back,” said Fontenette. “In the second half we really fought back. After Brandi (Stephens) got hurt, everybody stepped up and did a little more and that really contributed to our comeback.”
“I thought we came out soft in the first half and that really hurt us,” said CSUMB Head Coach
Renee Jimenez, who led the Otters to their first two NCAA bids the last two seasons. “Kudos to our kids. Defensively we turned it up in the second half. We'll learn from this and we'll be back here next year.”
The Otters scored the opening basket and stayed close through most of the first half, but the Vikings eased away late in the period, opening the biggest lead of the game at 36–22 on Britt Harris' buzzer–beating layup. But CSUMB roared out of the gate in the second half, needing less than three minutes to cut that deficit in half.
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Brandi Stephens (Sacramento/El Camino HS) fastbreak layup at the 16:49 mark kept the Otter express rolling, but at a terrible price. Stephens injured her foot on the play, forcing the Otters' leading scorer out of the game for the duration.
replaced Stephens. Her layup six minutes into the period cut Western's advantage to one possession at 42–40 and the game was afoot.
A Fontenette steal and fastbreak layup finally knotted the game at 50–50 just inside of 10 minutes to play.
Brittani Jefferson (Palmdale/Quartz Hill HS) then added a short jumper and a pair of free throws to give CSUMB its first lead since the opening minute at 54–52.
The teams played through four ties and six lead changes over the final 10 minutes. But the Otters wouldn't score again after Jefferson gave them their final lead at 58–57, allowing Western to finish the final 2:35 on an 8–0 run to ice the game.
In addition to Fontenette,
Danielle Padilla (Salem, Ore./McKay HS) came off the bench to score 11 points while Jefferson chipped in 10. Jefferson and Bandy led the way on the boards, grabbing six rebounds each.
