Despite out-shooting the No. 5 team in the country, The Master's women's basketball team lost to the Westmont Warriors 63-54 Saturday night in Santa Barbara.
The Lady Mustangs (13-7, 6-6 GSAC) shot 44% from the field while holding the Warriors to under 37%, but 23 offensive rebounds led to 20 second chance points for the home team to give them the nine-point win.
"The difference in the game was our inability to keep them off the glass," said Head Coach Lisa Zamroz. "Other than that we did everything needed to keep ourselves in it."
The Warriors but The Master's in an early hole, opening up the game with an 11-2 lead. That lead was cut to within one with 4:12 to play in the second quarter, but that was as close as TMU could get as Westmont went to the locker room with a 29-22 lead.
That lead grew to as much as 17 points in the third quarter before the Lady Mustangs tried to get back late. But there just wasn't enough time to erase what ended as a nine-point difference.
Ella Brubaker finished with 21 points,
Lexi Hernandez had 15 and a team-high eight rebounds, and
Madeline Cooke added 11 on 5-for-5 shooting.
"Ella did what she does and found a way to keep us in it late by drawing fouls and getting to the line," Zamroz said. "Overall we competed night and day better than our first contest."
TMU suffered their worst loss of the season to Westmont 71-45 at home back on Nov. 30.
"We hope for one more opportunity to compete with them in the GSAC tournament should we put ourselves in position by a strong conference finish," Zamroz said.
The good news for The Master's is five of their final six games will be at home in The MacArthur Center. That starts on Thursday when the Lady Mustangs host Hope International with a 5:30 p.m. tip-off.
