SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — Since her arrival at UC Santa Barbara, Women's Basketball Head Coach Renee Jimenez has stressed the importance of defense, and her Gauchos (13-9, 7-5 Big West) proved her point on Thursday night, holding Cal State Bakersfield (1-21, 1-11 Big West) to just 40 points to earn a double-digit victory despite tallying just 51 points themselves. The stars of last week's two Gaucho wins — Zoe Borter and Skylar Burke — played key roles again on Thursday. Borter led the offense with a game-high 15 points, while Burke controlled the glass with a season-high 12 rebounds. The reigning Big West Player of the Week Burke also provided some crucial buckets down the stretch, scoring all nine of her points in the fourth quarter. She added two late steals to complete a Roadrunner-stopping performance that Wile E. Coyote would envy.
 
FROM HEAD COACH RENEE JIMENEZ
"When there feels like there's a lid on the basket sometimes, you've got to find other ways to come up with plays, so we challenged them to get on the boards and try to get some second chances there," Jimenez said. "I mean, this is a 25-point win for us with the kind of defense we played. We had two quarters, the third and fourth, where we gave up eight and six points. So, our defense is really good, but we made 15 baskets on 55 shots, that's not going to get it done …. We need three, four guys who are on the same page offensively every night. That's kind of what we're missing; it's one or two, but we've got to have three or four that are getting us into double figures. Right now, we'll continue to defend and rebound, and we'll just keep hanging our hat on that."
 
HOW IT HAPPENED
The first quarter was fine for the Gauchos defensively, as they allowed a respectable 15 points, but it was less fine on the offensive end, as Santa Barbara shot just 2-of-15 from the floor in the opening 10 minutes and finished the period with just nine points. Cayla Williams answered Bakersfield's game-opening three-pointer with one of her own, but after that the Gauchos went scoreless for seven and a half minutes. However, Santa Barbara finished the quarter on a 6-2 run and kept chipping away to start the second.
 
Borter and Jessica Grant each hit three-pointers to cut the Roadrunner lead to just one score, and the Gauchos' deficit was never more than five in the quarter. Anya Choice made a three of her own to cut that deficit to just one just before the four-minute mark, and 30 seconds later she drew and drained two free throws to give Santa Barbara a 22-21 lead, their first of the game. The margin still never grew above five, but from that point until halftime, it was the Gauchos leading and the Roadrunners chasing. Another Williams three-pointer and a two-point pull-up jumper from Grant were enough to send Santa Barbara to the locker rooms with the lead, 27-26.
 
The Gauchos extended that lead in the third quarter, though only by two, as neither team could separate from the other. Again, the margin never exceeded two scores, but the momentum kept moving in Santa Barbara's direction. That swing was largely thanks to Borter's left hand; the sophomore made three driving lefty layups in quick succession early in the quarter for six of her 15 points on the night. By the end of the frame, the Gauchos still led, 37-34.
 
Santa Barbara finally managed to pull away in the fourth quarter, holding Bakersfield to just six points and finishing the game on a 14-2 run. After the Roadrunners had taken the lead, Burke delivered a pair of electric plays to turn the tide back. First, she drove right through the Bakersfield defense, laying the ball in and drawing a foul for a three-point play. The next time down, Burke and the Gauchos made the most of their second chances. It started with Burke grabbing the rebound from an attempt that missed the iron (and therefore didn't reset the shot clock). With the shot clock ticking down, Burke fired a turnaround jumper from the free throw line. That shot clanged off the front of the rim, but Borter was on the scene to keep the ball with the Gauchos. After more time came off the clock, Burke got the ball back at the top of the arc and fired home a three-pointer to put Santa Barbara up by five.
 
From there, the Gauchos scored nine more unanswered points before Bakersfield put up their final two with just 30 seconds left in the game. Burke dribbled out the clock to ice Santa Barbara's 51-40 victory.
 
BY THE NUMBERS

• The Gauchos' 51 points are the fewest they have won a game with since Feb. 27, 2019, when Santa Barbara beat Cal Poly by a score of 44-42.
• Skylar Burke's 12 rebounds on Thursday night were a season high; she now ranks seventh in The Big West for rebounding (6.7 per game) and is the conference's best rebounder under six feet tall.
• With her game-high 15 points on Thursday night, Zoe Borter has now scored 15 or more points in four of her last seven Big West games and is averaging 9.6 points per game in conference play.

 
UP NEXT
The Gauchos now face what is typically the toughest road trip in The Big West, traveling to play Hawai'i on Saturday. Tipoff from SimpliFi Arena at the Stan Sheriff Center in Manoa is set for 9 p.m. Pacific Time. The game will be broadcast on ESPN+ and live stats will be available at ucsbgauchos.com/WBBLiveStats.