Mustangs Travel to Berkeley Saturday to Face PAC-12’s Cal

Saturday, December 18

Berkeley, CA

3 P.M.

Cal

Photo by: Owen Main | Cal Poly Athletics

Mustangs Travel to Berkeley Saturday to Face PAC-12’s Cal

12/15/2021 2:24:00 PM | Women's Basketball

WEEKLY NOTES (PDF)

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — Playing its final non-conference road game of the season, Cal Poly will travel up north to Berkeley Saturday to take on Cal out of the PAC-12 looking for its first road win of the season. Tip time is set for 3 p.m. inside Haas Pavilion. Live video streaming and live stat links can be found on the schedule page. The Mustangs (1-6) are seeking to snap a four game losing skid. On Monday, Cal Poly fell at Northern Arizona 73-88. Three Mustangs scored in double figures, including a career-high 20 points from junior guard Maddie Willett. Junior guard Maddie Vick matched her career-high with 19 points while graduate forward Kirsty Brown recorded her first double-double of the season with 12 points and a career-high 14 rebounds. In that game, Cal Poly shot a season-high 55.6 percent from three. However, the Mustangs committed 20 turnovers which NAU turned into 28 points. Cal Poly held a five point lead after the first quarter and trailed by three at halftime. NAU started the third quarter on a 16-5 run to go up by 14. After falling behind 58-44 with 4:36 left in the quarter, the Mustangs battled back with an 11-0 run to cut the lead to 58-55. The Lumberjacks then finished the quarter on a 7-0 run to go back up by 10. That run continued into the fourth quarter as NAU scored the first five points to go ahead by 15 and later led by as many as 19. Vick has now scored double digits in each of the last five games and leads the Mustangs in scoring at 12.7 points per game as well as assists at 3.6 per game. Starting for the first time in her career, Vick has upped her scoring by nearly eight points from last season. Willett meanwhile has scored double figures the last three games and four games total this season. She is second on the team in scoring at 11.4 points per game and leads the team in made threes with 11. In six of Cal Poly's seven games this season, the Mustangs have been led in scoring by either Willett or Vick. Brown leads the Mustangs in rebounds at 7.1 per game and is third in scoring at 7.6 points per game. Her 2.6 offensive rebounds per game ranks third amongst Big West players. The Golden Bears head into Saturday's game with a 7-2 record, including a 5-1 record at home this season. They are coming off a 102-60 win over McNeese State last Saturday. Freshman guard Jayda Curry leads Cal in scoring at 19.6 points per game which ranks 27th in the nation. As a team they average nearly 75 points per game while shooting 43 percent from the field. Brown Nearing Program Record: Kirsty Brown, a fifth-year player, needs to play in just 16 more games to become the Mustangs' program leader in career games played. The record is 124 and she currently sits at 109. 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 Nielacna 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.