SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - One day after taking down No. 22 The Master's, the Lewis-Clark State Warriors pulled off an upset for the second-straight night with a 58-49 win over the No. 11 Westmont Warriors. Jossilyn Blackman notched her second-straight double-double, the seventh of her career, with a career-high 14 rebounds to go with 13 points.
Coming into Wednesday's game, Westmont led the nation in 3-point field goal percentage at 42.1 percent, but LC managed to hold them to just 20.7 percent (6-for-29), and also won the rebounding game 50-37.
"When you are able to go on the road and beat two top-25 ranked teams you know you had a great weekend," Head Coach Brian Orr said. "I thought tonight our defense was really solid until the last seven minutes. We had tremendous energy and two games in a row we had 50 or more rebounds. Those are the qualities that you need to have to win on the road."
The LC Warriors got off to a slow start in the opening quarter, not getting on the board until Blackman found the basket at 7:38. The lead changed hands multiple times in the period before Blackman added her second second-chance basket of the night to even the score 12-12 to close the quarter.
LC had a strong second quarter, holding Westmont to only five points in the frame.
Abby Farmer hit a 3 to open the scoring the second quarter and give LC a 15-12 advantage at 8:37, and this proved to be the turning point of the game for the Warriors. Blackman added her eighth point of the game with a layup a minute later to grow the lead and seemed unstoppable. She hit a layup at 7:41 to spark a nine-point run in which she scored six points, capping it with a basket at 2:29 to put LC in front 24-14. She put up 12 in the half. Delaney Henery also had a triple in the final span that sent the Warriors to the locker room with a 10-point lead.
Westmont came out firing in the third quarter, matching LC point-for-point. Hailey Turner rebounded a missed free throw to push the lead back to seven at 28-21 at 8:18. A 3 from Abbie Johnson grew to lead to 10 at 31-21 with 6:24 on the clock, then again with a jumper on an assist from Peyton Souvenir to make it 37-27 at 2:52. With 10 minutes remaining in the contest, LC led 37-30.
A pair of free throws by Henery kick started a 11-point rally by LC. The run featured seven points from Henery and four from Turner to put the Warriors up 48-30 with 5:59 to play. LC held Westmont off the board for the first four minutes of the period. Westmont ralied in the final minutes of the game, bringing the score back to within 10. LC drained five free throws in the final 30 seconds to hang on to win 58-49.
With 12 points in the first half, Blackman led the scoring efforts with 13 total points. Her career-best 14 rebounds sealed the deal for her second-consecutive double-double. Turner dropped 11 points in the win and Henery added 10.
LC held the best 3-point shooting team in the NAIA to just 20.7 percent from behind the arc, and tallied 13 more rebounds. They outshot Westmont, hitting 35.2 percent of their shots compared to 27.4 percent.
The Warriors wrap up 2018 with a record of 11-2 and head home for the holiday break. They jump back into Frontier Conference play on Jan. 4 at Providence in Great Falls, Mont.
