PHOENIX — The UC Santa Barbara Women's Basketball team opened their Thanksgiving weekend trip to Arizona against Grand Canyon on Friday afternoon, where Alyssa Marin scored double-digit points for a sixth game in a row, but the Gauchos fell to the hosting Antelopes, 69-58. Martha Pietsch was the top scorer off the bench for Santa Barbara with 11 points on the night.
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
Marin scored the first bucket of the game, but then the Lopes took their first lead with consecutive scores before Marin re-tied the scores early. Then, it became a game of runs, with the Lopes scoring six unanswered points to take the first multi-possession lead of the afternoon. Five minutes into the quarter, Pietsch came off the bench and sparked the Gaucho offense, first with a short jumper and then consecutive three-pointers which, combined with a Skylar Burke basket, created an 8-0 run for Santa Barbara, who re-took the lead.
 
However, Grand Canyon answered back with a 9-0 run of their own and a 23-15 lead at the end of the first quarter. The Lopes extended their lead to as many as 13 in the second quarter, but again the Gauchos battled back late in the frame. This time it was Marin leading the charge, knocking down a pair of three-pointers in the quarter. She was fouled on her second of those threes and sank the free throw for a four-point play, which brought Santa Barbara back within six. The next time down, Kanani Coon made a layup to cut the GCU lead to just four, though the margin was back to six by the halftime buzzer.
 
After the break, the teams went nearly basket-for-basket in the third quarter, with the Lopes managing to stay just a few possessions ahead of the Gauchos. Burke scored four of Santa Barbara's 12 points in the quarter, with Zoe Borter contributing four more. One of Borter's baskets pulled the Gauchos within five, as did an Anya Choice layup later in the quarter, but that would be as close as Santa Barbara got. The Gauchos trailed by 11 heading into the fourth quarter.
 
Santa Barbara did put together a 9-0 run late in the fourth to make things interesting. Pietsch kicked it off with another three-pointer, then Choice created her own shot with a behind-the-back dribble leading to a three-point play. Jessica Grant knocked down her second three-pointer of the quarter to cap the run with just under two minutes to play, but there would be no further comeback for the Gauchos.
 
UP NEXT
Santa Barbara returns to the Global Credit Union Arena at GCU on Saturday, Nov. 30 at 11 a.m. Pacific Time for their last game of the weekend, taking on Seattle University. The game will be streamed live on GCU's website, with live stats available through ucsbgauchos.com.