{"id":51283,"date":"2025-11-13T14:39:22","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T14:39:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/51283\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T14:39:22","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T14:39:22","slug":"faster-pace-cant-lift-lbsu-past-cal-baptist-in-home-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/51283\/","title":{"rendered":"Faster pace can\u2019t lift LBSU past Cal Baptist in home opener"},"content":{"rendered":"

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LBSU sophomore guard JaQuoia Jones-Brown recorded a career-high 19 points in The Beach’s home opener loss to Cal Baptist on Wednesday, Nov. 12. Rehansa Kulatilleke | Long Beach Current<\/p>\n

Despite its best offensive showing of the young season, Long Beach State women\u2019s basketball had its home opener spoiled with an 83-60 loss to future Big West rival Cal Baptist University at the Walter Pyramid on Wednesday, Nov. 12.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After failing to reach 40 points in either of their first two games, The Beach (0-3) recorded a season-high 60 points against the Lancers (3-0), paced by sophomore guard JaQuoia Jones-Brown<\/a>, who scored a career-high 19.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, LBSU still failed to generate an efficient offense, shooting 31.3% from the field and giving up 19 turnovers in its first home game of the regular season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are definitely of the growth mindset right now,\u201d LBSU head coach Amy Wright said. \u201cI saw a lot of growth in these young women from this past week into today, and you can only continue to build on it with a young team.\u201d<\/p>\n

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LBSU freshman guard Brynna Pukis is hounded on the baseline by CBU graduate guard Chance Bucher during The Beach\u2019s 80-63 home opener loss on Wednesday, Nov. 12. Rehansa Kulatilleke | Long Beach Current<\/p>\n

After a slow start from both teams, CBU bolted to an 18-2 run with seven consecutive made field goals, while LBSU missed its first eight shots on the night.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, the Lancers went cold late in the opening period, missing their last 10 shots to open the door for The Beach to cut the deficit to 22-13 after the first frame.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

LBSU rode that momentum as Judit Oliva Fernandez<\/a>, who recorded the team\u2019s second double-double of the season with 12 points and a team-high 11 rebounds, scored the second quarter\u2019s first four points to whittle the lead down to five.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Despite the loss, LBSU sophomore forward Judit Oliva Fernandez recorded the team\u2019s second double-double of the season with 12 points and a team-high 11 rebounds on Wednesday, Nov. 12, at the Walter Pyramid. Rehansa Kulatilleke | Long Beach Current<\/p>\n

CBU would eventually reclaim the double-digit lead in the middle of the second quarter as both offenses were deadlocked in a tug-of-war to end the first half.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Typically unshy about outside shooting, The Beach attempted and made only one shot from beyond the arc in the second quarter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Removing Wednesday\u2019s second quarter, The Beach average 5.9 three-point attempts per quarter through three games this season, but Wright attributed the change in shot diet to the team\u2019s inside scoring ability.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t want to take a 24-foot shot when you can get a two-foot shot, so in the second quarter, I think that\u2019s what was happening,\u201d Wright said. \u201cWe were able to kind of exploit little mismatches, and then they did a great job in terms of when they started to double, we kicked it out and did get that one three-pointer, so game strategy is part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Beach scored just four points, all on free throws, in the final 4:46 of the quarter, ending the first half with a 41-29 deficit.<\/p>\n

It turned out to be the Lancers who would end the deadlock with a 28-point explosion in the third quarter, thanks to junior guard Khloe Lemon<\/a>, who scored a team-high 17 points in 24 minutes on Wednesday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lemon single-handedly took over the third period after her two made threes and layup in the first two minutes stretched the lead to 49-31, which The Beach never recovered from.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jones-Brown left the game unsatisfied after her career night.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, it\u2019s just points because we still lost at the end of the day so I still have to do better,\u201d Jones-Brown said. \u201cEven though I got 19 points, I think now my teammates see that if we actually work as a team, everybody can have that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the offense failed to shoot efficiently, LBSU recorded its highest offensive output of the season in large part due to playing with a faster pace in response to CBU\u2019s 79.3 possessions per game.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew they were fast,\u201d Wright said. \u201cYou want [the team] to have fresh legs so all you can do is talk about it and then visually show it on film. It\u2019s different to feel it.\u201d<\/p>\n

LBSU will continue its homestand against Sacramento State at the Walter Pyramid on Saturday, Nov. 15, at 2 p.m.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LBSU sophomore guard JaQuoia Jones-Brown recorded a career-high 19 points in The Beach’s home opener loss to Cal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-51283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}