Mustangs Play Host to UC Davis, UC Riverside This Week

Thursday, February 17

San Luis Obispo, Calif.

7 P.M.

UC Davis

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Photo by: Owen Main | Cal Poly Athletics

Mustangs Play Host to UC Davis, UC Riverside This Week

2/15/2022 4:53:00 PM | Women's Basketball

WEEKLY NOTES (PDF)

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — With just three home games remaining in the 2021-22 season, the Cal Poly women's basketball team will play two of those this week when welcoming UC Davis and UC Riverside to Mott Athletics Center. The Mustangs (3-15, 2-7 BWC) will face the Aggies (11-9, 5-5 BWC) Thursday at 7 p.m. and the Highlanders (7-10, 4-6 BWC) Saturday at 2 p.m. Zachary Anderson-Yoxsimer and former Mustang standout Molly Schlemer will have the call for both games on ESPN+ and GoPoly.com. Links for those as well as live stats can be found the schedule page. Saturday's game against UC Riverside will be Play 4 Kay day with two dollars of every ticket sold going towards the Kay Yow Cancer Fund. Last week, Cal Poly earned its first road win of the season after beating CSUN 56-55. Junior forward Julia Nielacna scored the game-winning layup with 12 seconds left to lift the Mustangs over the Matadors. Junior guard Maddie Vick finished with a team-high 15 points and five assists for the Mustangs, who led by 20 at halftime. Freshman guard Jazzy Anousinh had career-highs of nine points and seven rebounds while fellow freshman guard Annika Shah also added nine points. Then on Saturday, Cal Poly fell to UC Santa Barbara 73-40. Vick and Nielacna each finished with 10 points. Shah and junior guard Maddie Willett both added seven points apiece. Vick continues to lead Cal Poly in both scoring (10.6 ppg) and assists (4.0 per game). She also leads the Mustangs and is third in Big West in minutes per game at 36.5. She has played 35+ minutes in 13 games this year and has scored double figures 10 times. Brown, who is closing in on the all-time program record for games played, leads the team blocks (1.1 per game) which ranks second in the Big West and rebounds (6.5 per game) which ranks seventh in the conference. As a team, Cal Poly ranks second in the Big West in offensive rebounds per game (11.8) and third in defensive rebounds per game (28.2). UC Davis, the two-time defending Big West champions, head into Thursday's game having won their last two games to hold a 5-5 conference record. They are coming off wins last week over UC San Diego and UC Irvine. As a team, they are second in the Big West in threes made per game at 7.4 while shooting 31.6-percent. Forward Cierra Hall leads the team in scoring at 14.3 points per game which ranks sixth in the conference as well as rebounds (8.3) which is third in the Big West. This will be the first meeting this season between the two teams after the first one earlier this season was canceled due to COVID protocols. Heading into the week, UC Riverside holds a 4-6 conference mark after splitting a pair of games last week. The Highlanders fell to UC Irvine 60-44 before bouncing back with a win over UC San Diego 68-48. UC Riverside has been led this season by guard Keilanei Cooper, who is averaging 14.1 points per game which ranks seventh in the Big West. This will also be the first meeting of the season with the Highlanders after the first earlier this season was canceled due to COVID protocols. Brown Nearing Program Record: Kirsty Brown, a fifth-year player, needs to play in just five more games to become the Mustangs' program leader in career games played. The record is 124 and she currently sits at 120. 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.