Mustangs Open 2021-22 Season Wednesday at Santa Clara

Wednesday, November 10

Santa Clara, CA

5 P.M.

Santa Clara

Photo by: Photo By: Photography805/ Nathan

Mustangs Open 2021-22 Season Wednesday at Santa Clara

11/8/2021 4:02:00 PM | Women's Basketball

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — Cal Poly women's basketball will begin the 2021-22 regular season Wednesday on the road at Santa Clara. Tip time is set for 5 p.m. from the Leavey Center. The game will be live streamed on WCCnetwork.com. A link for that as well as a link to live stats can be found on the schedule page. Despite losing their top-two leading scorers from last season, the Mustangs are joined by eight newcomers that are comprised of six freshman and a pair of Division I transfers. They do welcome back eight returners to this year's team, including junior guard Maddie Willett who was third on the team in scoring last season at 7.8 points per game and senior forward Kirsty Brown who was fourth on the team in scoring at 6.7 points and second in rebounding at 5.6 per game. Last Saturday, Cal Poly beat Cal State San Bernardino in an exhibition game at Mott Athletics Center. Brown led all players with a double-double of 19 points and 11 rebounds. Freshman guard Sydney Bourland came off the bench to score 17 points. Fellow freshman guard Annika Shah added 12 points while senior forward Zoe Stachowski added seven points and 10 rebounds. Last season Cal Poly finished 13-11 overall and 8-8 in Big West play, finishing in sixth place in the regular season conference standings. In the Big West Conference Tournament, the Mustangs beat Long Beach State 61-60 in the quarterfinals before falling to UC Irvine in the semifinals. Following Wednesday's game, Cal Poly will be off for 13 days before its home opener Tuesday, Nov. 23 against nationally-ranked Louisville at 5 p.m. That same week, the Mustangs will host their annual Holiday Beach Classic Tournament at Mott in which they will host St. Thomas on Friday, Nov. 26 at 12 p.m. and Montana State on Saturday, Nov. 27 at 2:30 p.m. Scouting Santa Clara: The Broncos finished 14-11 last season, including a 9-8 mark in WCC play. They return all but one of their players from a year ago and 82-percent of their scoring, including their leading scorer from last year in senior guard Lindsey VanAllen who averaged 13 points per game. Santa Clara hosted San Francisco State for an exhibition game on Nov. 3, winning 74-41. The Broncos were led by VanAllen and redshirt senior Merle Wiehl each scoring 17 points. Wiehl also recorded a double-double, adding 13 rebounds. The Mustangs won both matchups with Santa Clara last season at Mott Athletics Center. Cal Poly won 57-56 on Dec. 14 and 70-59 on Dec. 15. Santa Clara leads the all-time series 12-6. Brown Nearing Program Record: Kirsty Brown, a fifth-year player, needs to play in just 23 more games to become the Mustangs' program leader in career games played. The record is 124 and she heads into the season having played in 102. Returning Mustangs: The Mustangs return a total of eight players from last season. Those include junior guard Maddie Willett who started 23 of 24 games last year and was third on the team in scoring at 7.8 points per game and had seven games in which she scored double figures. Senior forward Kirsty Brown returns for her fifth season. Last year, she was fourth on the team in scoring 6.4 points per game, second in rebounding at 5.6 per game, and had three double-doubles. Junior guard Maddie Vick played in all 24 games last season and came off the bench to lead the team in assists per game at 2.8. She also ranked third in the Big West in assist-to-turnover ratio at 2.6. New Stangs: Cal Poly will have plenty of youth on this year's team as they welcome six freshmen. The Mustangs also added two Division I transfers in redshirt freshman guard Sarah Dumitrescu from Ole Miss and junior forward Julia Nielanca from San Francisco. At USF, Nielacna was second on the team in scoring as a freshman in 2019-20. Last year, she averaged 8.0 points per game while shooting 44-percent from the field and 35-percent from three. As a freshman last season at Ole Miss, Dumitrescu averaged 4.5 points and 7.3 rebounds per game in six games before missing the rest of the season due to injury.