SANTA CRUZ, Calif. – A career night from Merle Wiehl wasn't enough as Santa Clara women's basketball saw a late run by LMU lead to a 66-57 defeat Saturday night at Kaiser Permanente Arena in the first home game of the season.
The teams exchanged leads early in the fourth quarter until the Lions (2-6, 1-2 WCC) scored 10 in a row to pull away. Ariel Johnson scored five points during the run that lasted just under three minutes. Khari Clark's bucket at 2:33 capped the run and made it a 58-50 game that was too much for the Broncos (5-4, 1-2 WCC) to overcome in the final minutes.
"Credit to them," Santa Clara head coach Bill Carr said. "They've got good players and they didn't stop playing. They took it to us. We have to learn from it. We have to get everybody ready to play and everybody producing when they come on the floor."
Johnson finished the game with a team high 19 points on 6-of-8 shooting and added eight rebounds. Chelsey Gipson added 16 points despite going 3-of-11 from the floor thanks to an 8-of-10 mark at the charity stripe to go with five boards and Ciera Ellington scored 13.
The game started well for Santa Clara who was red hot from the field and built a 16-1 lead. Wiehl scored eight in a row, including two 3-pointers, and Lindsey VanAllen scored six during the run as well.
"We had some really good energy early and some rhythm offensively," Carr said. We were also bouncing around defensively."
Wiehl finished the night with a career high 25 points and set career highs with 10 field goals made and 16 attempted. The junior also tied a career high with nine rebounds.
"Merle had a really nice game tonight," Carr said. "We need to get her shots. We did tonight and she did a really good job."
The rest of the team struggled from the field with Santa Clara finishing at 34.5-percent with just a 5-of-19 mark from beyond the arc.
The only other Bronco in double figures was VanAllen who scored 15. Ashlyn Herlihy grabbed 13 rebounds, one off her career high.
"We just have to do our stuff," Carr said. "We have to get better. We're not going to make wholesale changes. We just have to get sharper. We've got to get back to playing harder and getting better."
The game really started to shift with a 9-0 run for the Lions over 2:21 early in the third quarter that gave them their first lead of the night. Johnson started things with a 3-pointer and finished it with back-to-back layups that put LMU up 35-34 with 6:07 remaining in the quarter.
Santa Clara started the game as strong defensively as they did offensively, not allowing an LMU field goal until the four-minute mark. To that point, the Lions just had one point in six minutes of action.
The Lions got their offense going with a 9-0 run of their own over 1:18 late in the period. Natalia Klimek scored five with Gipson adding four.
��️ Hear from head coach Bill Carr on tonight's game against LMU.
— Santa Clara Women's Basketball (@Santaclarawbb) January 3, 2021
Postgame interview presented by @ROATweets.#StampedeTogether #SCUBroncos pic.twitter.com/T37nLa4crw
NOTES
- Santa Clara is now 49-29 all-time against LMU.
- The Broncos won the battle of the boards 41-36 and 17-12 on the offensive glass. They turned that into a 12-5 edge in second chance points.
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The Broncos next game, scheduled for Monday at 2 p.m. vs. Pepperdine, has been postponed. The next game will be Thursday at 6:30 p.m. at Saint Mary's.
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