Box Score Santa Barbara, Calif. – UC Irvine hit a season-high 10 three-pointers to beat UC Santa Barbara, 77-73 at the Thunderdome Thursday.
Five different Anteaters knocked down a three as UCI (14-13, 7-6) went 10-27 from long range. UCI shot 42.2 percent (27-64) from the floor for the game.
UCI's Camille Buckley recorded her league-leading 14th double-double with a game-high 27 points and 13 rebounds. The senior went 8-14 from the floor and 11-16 from the free throw line. With her first free throw she became the sole leader of the UCI single season record for free throws made now with 170. The forward also had three assists and one steal in 37 minutes of action.
Senior guard Vanessa Aguilar tied her career-high with five three-pointers and ended the night with 17 points. Senior guard Jennifer Tsurumoto added 11 points and three assists, while senior forward Jasmine Bernard went 4-8 from the floor for eight points, plus five rebounds. Madison McKenney had six points, Kelly Meggs totaled five points and Lauren Spinazze rounded out the scoring with three points.
Nicole Nesbit (8-18, 3-10) led the Gauchos with 20 points. Melissa Zornig had 16 points and nine rebounds and Onome Jemerigbe totaled 13 points. Clair Watkins grabbed a team-high 11 rebounds.
A three-pointer by Jennifer Tsurumoto at 15:56 helped UCI jump out to a 10-3 lead. Another three-pointer, this time by Madison McKenney, put the Anteaters in front 20-14 at 10:05 before UCSB out-scored UCI, 15-3 to take a 29-23 advantage at 4:45. The Anteaters would close out the half on a 6-2 run which was capped by a jumper by Tsurumoto at the buzzer as UCI would trail 34-32 at the break.
Nicole Nesbit scored six points as UCSB took a 46-37 lead with 15:44 to play. The Gauchos maintained a 58-54 advantage with 8:54 left before Jennifer Tsurumoto scored two baskets and Vanessa Aguilar followed with two three-pointers to put UCI in front 64-58 at 6:20. Another Tsurumoto basket gave UCI a 73-68 advantage with 2:04 remaining then UCSB's Melissa Zornig hit a three-pointer to cut the lead to 73-71 (:41). Kelly Meggs was fouled and made a pair of free throws with 37 seconds. A basket by Nesbit was followed by two free throws by Camille Buckley with 26 seconds remaining. That would be the last time any one scored as UCSB would miss two field goal attempts and UCI would miss four free throw attempts.
UCI will travel to Cal Poly Saturday (Mar. 1) for a 2:00 p.m. game at Mott Gym.
