By Zach DeMarcus
January 17, 2019
 
(FULLERTON, Calif.) #14 Westmont Women's Basketball (12-6, 5-3 GSAC) struggled to overcome a second quarter in which they were outscored 29-12 by Hope International (13-4, 4-4 GSAC). The Warriors ultimately fell by a score of 64-68. Freshman Kaitlin Larson led all scorers with 20 points and was tied with fellow freshman Sydney Brown for a game-high of nine boards.
 
Westmont head coach Kirsten Moore said, "Hope caught fire in the second quarter. They shot 73 percent from the 3-point line in the first half. Credit to them, they were shooting it with confidence and came out and attacked. I thought they were the aggressors and we didn't respond to that very well."
 
With the score at 7-6 in favor of the Royals with 4:53 to go in the first quarter, Westmont's freshmen had a nice stint. Larson hit two free throws, Sydney Brown and Gabriella Stoll both converted on layups, and Iyree Jarret finished an and-one play. This brought the score to 15-10 in favor of the Warriors at the end of the first quarter.
 
The Royals took over in the second quarter. Hope would go on to hit seven 3-pointers in the quarter – missing only one. They went 11 of 15 from the floor to total their 29 second-quarter points. This put the Warriors in a 27-39 hole heading into halftime.
 
Westmont battled well in the second half. They outscored the Royals 23-20 in the third quarter and 14-9 in the fourth quarter, but it was too little too late as they would find themselves four points behind the Royals at the final buzzer.
 
Jarret added 14 points for the Warriors – seven of those came from the free throw line. Stefanie Berberabe added 10 points of her own.
 
Moore added, "I thought our whole team battled really hard in the second half to try to make plays and get us back in the game, but we ran out of time.
 
"We have to be so much better defensively. That's always been something that we've taken pride in in our program. We had one quarter where we lost focus on that and we weren't able to right the ship. I think this is something that our young team can continue to learn from – the importance of every possession and not putting ourselves in the hole that we put ourselves in because of the defense.
 
"Credit to Hope, they shot the lights out against us tonight and played a really great game against us. They definitely deserved to win."
 
Looking forward Moore finished with, "Our team has responded all year. They're a great group as far as being coachable and learning. This is another experience that we can definitely learn from. We're not even thinking about Saturday, we're thinking about tomorrow's practice and how we can prepare to be ready night in and night out.
 
Westmont will play host to San Diego Christian on Saturday with tipoff scheduled for 5:30 p.m.