LA VERNE, Ca. – The UC Santa Cruz women's basketball team earned an 82-80 comeback win over the University of La Verne on Thursday afternoon. The victory is the first of the season for the Slugs and they will look for their second tomorrow at 7:00 p.m. when they take on the Whittier Poets.  Alyssa Jackson led the team with 20 points while Jenna Gorton had 18 points and nine rebounds. Ariel Anderson ended the day with 17 points and seven rebounds while Emilie Ngo recorded a double-double with 11 points and 12 assists.
 
How It Happened
UC Santa Cruz scored the first basket with a free throw from Talysha Wilkerson, but LA Verne controlled the opening five minutes of action as they outscored UCSC from there 13-6. La Verne continued to push forward, extend their lead to 21-13 at the end of the first quarter
 
The second quarter started in a hurry as UC Santa Cruz scorched the nylon with an 11-0 run in just a minute 38 seconds. Jenna Gorton led the scoring with six points while Alyssa Jackson chimed in for three with Emilie Ngo recording the other two to put UCSC up 24-21. The scoring evened out as ULV narrowly outscored the Slugs 17-15 down the stretch with Alyssa Jackson scoring eight points to send UCSC into the halftime break with a 39-38 lead.
 
The halftime break was key for both teams as the Leopards and Slugs both came out quick after halftime. Over the opening five minutes of the third quarter, UC Santa Cruz held a narrow 13-12 edge to go up 52-50. La Verne was able to counter and regain the lead at 66-62 following a 16-10 run to end the third quarter.
 
UC Santa Cruz scored the first three points in the fourth with Ariel Anderson making a free throw before making a layup 21 seconds later to cut the ULV lead to 66-65. From there, the Leopards responded with an 8-3 run to extend their gap to 74-68 with 5:18 left in the quarter. After a full UC Santa Cruz timeout, the Banana Slugs had Emilie Ngo make two free throws before Ariel Anderson hit a shot from downtown to cut the La Verne lead to one point at 74-73. The Slugs' run continued as Ariel Anderson and Jenna Gorton both tallied three points to extend the UCSC lead to 79-76 with 45 seconds on the clock, forcing a quick ULV timeout. Out of the break, La Verne drove through the paint for a layup, cutting the UCSC lead to 79-78. La Verne managed to grab a defensive rebound on the other end and making another layup in the paint, taking the lead at 80-79 to for a UC Santa Cruz timeout with 10 seconds on the clock.
 
Out of the break, Emilie Ngo inbounded the ball to Alyssa Jackson in the corner. Jackson wasted no time and hit the corner three to put the Slugs on top 82-80 and send the bench into a frenzy. La Verne called a timeout immediately to try to come up with a solution with 7.7 seconds remaining. The Leopards went to their star three-point specialist Marissa Howell, but the attempt was off the front of the rim. La Verne grabbed the rebound but couldn't get another shot off in time as UC Santa Cruz earned the hard fought 82-80 comeback victory.