The American College season is closing in on Conference championship time. Some conferences wrapped up their regular season programmes this week – others will do the same next week.
Two of the teams wrapping up their regular seasons were West Coast Conference universities St Mary’s and Brigham Young Provo (BYU) and both recorded a pair of wins over the weekend.
On Friday Kalani Purcell marched to her 15th double double of the season – 19 points and 13 rebounds –as BYU Cougars beat Portland 73-60. She followed this with an equally impressive 21 points, 9 rebounds and 6 assists in the 71-63 win against Gonzaga on Sunday.
BYU will now prepare to compete as the No. 2 seed in next week’s 2017 West Coast Conference Women’s Basketball Championships at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas.
One place back in the conference, in third spot, will be St Mary’s Gaels.
Stella Beck had the honour of being named in the West Coast Conference All- Academic team on Tuesday. She celebrated in style scoring a game high 17 points as the Gaels thumped Pepperdine 84-57 on Friday.
48 hours later she had 9 points, 4 rebounds and 5 assists as the Gaels comfortably downed Santa Clara 73-58.
The University of California Berkeley have also wrapped up the regular season finishing 8th in the Pac-12 Conference after going down to league leaders Oregon State 71-56.
Penina Davidson had 8 points and 3 rebounds for the Bears that have a tough draw heading into the Pac-12 Championships beginning on Friday. If they get past 9th seed USC they have a rematch against Oregon State in the quarter-finals
Tessa Boagni demonstrated a good scoring touch as Cal State Northridge Matadors beat Cal State Fullerton 71-54 on Thursday. The Cantabrian centre tallied 14 points (7 from 10 from the field). A couple of days later Boagni had 8 points, 4 rebounds and 3 assists as the Matadors improved to 10-4 in the Big West Conference with a ninth straight victory defeating UC Riverside 79-70.
Katelin Noyer has recently been rewarded with extended playing time for Fresno State. She responded with 4 points, 6 rebounds and a couple of blocks as the Bulldogs improved to 8-8 in the Mountain West Conference with two games remaining after defeating San Diego State 59-50.
LACEY LOWDOWN 