SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. – The University of Denver women's basketball team used a suffocating first-half defensive performance and a balanced offensive attack to earn the Pioneers their first road win of the season, a 75-63 victory over Cal Poly on Saturday afternoon at Mott Athletics Center.
Inside The Box Score:
Uju Ezeudu led the Pioneers in scoring for the fifth time this season after leading the Pioneers in each of their first four contests. Ezeudu had a complete performance, finishing with 18 points, including 13 in the second half, to go with 12 fouls drawn, nine rebounds, four assists, four blocks and a steal.
Following her 15-point performance on Thursday,
Tess Santos added 14 more to bring her weekend total to 29 to go with three assists, two blocks and a steal of her own.
Meghan Boyd rounded out the double-figure scorers for the Pioneers, finishing with 14, including nine points from beyond the arc.
Anna Jackson,
Indeya Sanders and
Emily Counsel added eight points apiece to a balanced offensive attack for the Crimson and Gold.
First Quarter:
Denver's defense made a statement in the early going, blocking three shots in the first six minutes, half of their season average that ranks 22
nd in the country at 5.7 blocked shots per game. Denver went on an 8-0 run in a span of 3:31 led by a Santos triple and five points including an old-fashioned three-point play from Boyd to take a 10-4 lead at the first quarter media timeout.
The Pioneers held Cal Poly without a point for a stretch of nearly six minutes to race out to its 11-4 lead, a stint the Mustangs snapped with a put back with 1:51 to play in the quarter to cut the Pioneers lead to five.
Both teams went cold in the latter half of the first quarter, but the Pioneers took a five-point lead into the second.
Second Quarter:
Denver used a 6-0 run in a 2:21 stretch to push its lead to 12 at the under-five media timeout in the second quarter. Sanders gave Denver a spark off the bench with four points, two rebounds and a steal in the early stages of the second quarter. Santos added four points and Jackson connected on her first triple of the day to extend the Pioneers lead.
The Pioneers defense continued to be the story to end the first half. Denver ended the stanza on a 7-0 run and held Cal Poly to one of its last 16 from the field in the half.
Santos had nine of her first-half game-high 12 in the second 10 minutes. Counsel added five in three minutes off the bench, one of five different players to score for the Pios in the second quarter. The Pioneers shot 6-for-13 from the field in the second, including 3-of-7 from behind the arc, and got to the free-throw line eight times, burying all eight.
Denver assisted seven of its 11 first-half field goals, blocked six shots and had four steals to create offense on the other end. The Pioneers took a 17-point lead at 38-21 into the intermission.
Third Quarter
Cal Poly answered a
Makayla Minett free-throw with a 7-0 run in the early stages of the quarter to pull within 11.
Uju Ezeudu finished her first bucket of the afternoon in the paint, but Maddie Willett connected on a triple on the other end to cut the Pioneers' lead to 10 heading into the first of two media timeouts in the third with 6:42 to go in the period.
The Pioneers continued to go into Ezeudu in the post as the Denver junior got three buckets in low in the first five minutes of the quarter to get into double figures for the seventh time in eight games this season.
Denver got its lead back to 13 at 59-46 heading into the fourth quarter, thanks to 10 points in the frame from Ezeudu and five more from Jackson to bring her total in the game to eight.
Fourth Quarter:
The two programs split the first eight points of the fourth quarter four apiece in the first 3:37 heading into the fourth-quarter media courtesy of
Doshia Woods' first timeout of the day.
Woods called on Denver's leading scorer as Ezeudu used some nifty footwork in the post and converted an old-fashioned three-point play to push the Denver lead back to 16 at 66-50 out of the timeout.
Denver's lead got as high as 17 as Boyd connected on a pair of triples in a 66 second span to spark the Pioneers offense in the quarter.
Cal Poly was able to chip a few points off the lead down the stretch, but the Pioneers earned their first road win of the season, a 12-point victory to cap the California weekend.
Notes:
- Tess Santos finished in double figures for the fourth time this season and the 19th time in her career.
- Uju Ezeudu finished in double figures for the third-straight game, the seventh time this season and the 19th time in her career.
- Meghan Boyd finished in double figures for the fourth-straight game, the sixth time this season and the 33rd time in her career.
- Indeya Sanders finished with 5+ assists for the fourth time this season and the 26th time in her career.
- Ezeudu blocked four shots, the second time a Pioneer has achieved that this season (Minett – 11/15/21 vs. Wichita State).
- Denver tied a season-high with eight blocked shots, the third time the Pioneers have reached that total this season (11/12/21 vs. Missouri S&T and 11/27/21 vs. Wyoming).
What's Next:
Denver will return home for its only game in a stretch of six of seven on the road when the Pioneers host Colorado Christian on Tuesday at 7 p.m. MT.
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