Mustangs Finish Homestand Against Cal St. Fullerton, Long Beach St.

Thursday, February 3

San Luis Obispo, Calif.

7 P.M.

Cal State Fullerton

Tickets

Photo by: Owen Main | Cal Poly Athletics

Mustangs Finish Homestand Against Cal St. Fullerton, Long Beach St.

2/1/2022 3:30:00 PM | Women's Basketball

WEEKLY NOTES (PDF)

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — Cal Poly will finish out the final two games of its four game homestand this week with a pair of Big West contests against Cal State Fullerton and first-place Long Beach State. The Mustangs (1-13, 0-5 BWC) will be seeking their first conference win of the season when hosting the Titans (8-9, 3-4 BWC) Thursday at 7 p.m. They will then host the team currently tied atop the Big West standings in Long Beach State (13-3, 6-2 BWC) Saturday at 2 p.m. Zachary Anderson-Yoxsimer and Daniel Gillman will have the call for both games on ESPN+ as well as GoPoly.com. Links to those as well as live stats can be found on the schedule page. After a 19 day hiatus due to COVID protocols, Cal Poly returned to action last week, falling to UC San Diego 69-58 and UC Irvine 64-52. Against the Tritons, junior guard Maddie Vick finished with a team-high 14 points to go along with a career-high seven rebounds and six assists while graduate forward Kirsty Brown finished with 12 points and five rebounds. Against the Anteaters, senior forward Hannah Scanlan scored a season-high 22 points on 10-11 shooting from the field. Brown again finished in double figures with 11 points and a career-high four blocks. Vick has now scored 10+ points seven times this season, the most on the team. Brown has done it five times while Scanlan has four times. Scanlan's 22 point game is the second time this year a Mustang has scored 20+ points. Vick leads the team in scoring (10.4 points per game) and assists (3.7 per game). She also leads the Mustangs and is third in Big West in minutes per game at 35.3. She has played 35+ minutes in nine games this year. Brown, who is closing in on the all-time program record for games played, is fourth on the team in scoring at 8.2 points per game and leads the team in rebounding at 6.4 per game and blocks at 1.14 which ranks second in the Big West. As a team, Cal Poly ranks second in the Big West in offensive rebounds per game (11.6) and third in defensive rebounds per game (27.4). The Titans come into Thursday's game on a two-game winning streak after wins last week against UC Davis and UC Riverside. They've been led this season by freshman guard Lily Wahinekapu who is fourth in the conference in scoring at 14.5 points per game and second in assists at 4.5 per game. She was named this week's Big West Player of the Week after scoring a combined 44 points in two games last week. Last season, Cal Poly split its two games against the Titans down in Fullerton. Long Beach State is currently tied atop the Big West standings at 6-2 with UC Irvine and UC San Diego. They most recently saw their three game win streak come to an end with a 68-58 loss to UC Davis. The Beach have five players averaging more than eight points per game, led by senior forward Maddi Utti's 13.3 points per game. As a team, they lead the conference in scoring defense, allowing just 52.9 points per game to opponents. They also lead the Big West in assists (15.0), steals (13.0) and are second in field goal percentage (41.1). The Mustangs faced Long Beach State in their Big West opener on Dec. 30 in Long Beach, falling 76-54. Prior to that, Cal Poly had beat Long Beach State five straight times. Brown Nearing Program Record: Kirsty Brown, a fifth-year player, needs to play in just 9 more games to become the Mustangs' program leader in career games played. The record is 124 and she currently sits at 116. 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. Graduate 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.