Box Score Los Angeles, CA— Occidental's women's basketball team traveled to La Verne for the SCIAC Postseason Semifinal game looking to advance to the SCIAC Championship.
The Leopards would start the game hot as they jumped out to a 10-2 lead early on in the 1st quarter. The Tigers would respond as Toni Thompson would catch fire and score 9 straight points for the Tiger and get the score to 12-11 at the end of the 1st quarter.
In the 2nd quarter, Dara Tokeshi made a 3-pointer that put the Tigers up 16-14. Thompson would continue to score at will in the 2nd quarter and made the next two Oxy baskets that had Occidental up by a score of 20-16. After La Verne responded with a made basket, Dominique Cabading knocked down a 3-pointer to put Oxy up 5 points.
La Verne would keep the game within striking distance and not allow Oxy to create too large of a lead. Oxy's lead got back up to 8 points when Toni Thomspon knocked down a jumper to make the score 31-23. The Leopards would close the half on a small 4-0 to get back within 4 points of the lead heading into halftime.
The 3rd quarter would be a back and forth battle between the two team and the Tigers would carry a slight 48-45 advantage into the final 10 minutes of the game. In the 4th quarter Paige Yasukochi took over for the Tigers, as she found Gabriela Etopio open for layup to give Oxy a 52-47 lead. On the next possession, Yasukochi knocked down a jumper as the shot clock expired and Oxy was up by 7.
Yasukochi put Oxy up by 10 on the next possession by knocking down a 3-pointer, and Oxy's lead would remain in double digits for most of the rest of the game. The Tigers were up by 10 points with 1:27 left remaining in the game.
The Leopards would attempt to battle back in that last 90 seconds, but the Tiger lead was too big to surpass and Oxy would knock down clutch free throws and secure the win to advance to the SCIAC Championship!
The final score of the game was 76-70 as the Tigers will head to California Lutheran University to take on the Regals in the final game of the season, so be sure to make it out to support your Tigers!
Toni Thompson had a double double in this game with 30 points and 10 rebounds and both Dara Tokeshi and Paige Yasukochi made clutch plays in the 4th quarter as the Tigers used a team effort to take down the Leopards.
