SPOKANE – The California women’s basketball team was relentless on both sides of the ball to come away with a wire-to-wire 86-65 win over Gonzaga at the McCarthy Athletics Center on Thursday night. The Golden Bears (4-0) had four players score at least 14 points led by Kayla Williams who had her best game as a Bear by far, posting season highs of 25 points (9-of-12) and four triples (4-of-6) to go along with six assists and four steals. Her biggest shot of the night came as the clock expired going into the half as she took an inbounds pass with six seconds to go and raced down the court to nail a 30-foot 3-pointer and put the Bears up 44-31 going into the break. The Bears forced the Zags (1-2) into a season-high 24 turnovers which led to 29 points. Ioanna Krimili and Marta Suárez added four and three steals respectively to add to Cal’s season-high 15 takeaways.
The home loss marked just the fourth for the Zags since the 2018-19 season and the first since Feb. 5, 2022 when they fell to then-No. 16 BYU.
The nation’s top duo from long range coming into the game, Krimili and Lulu Twidale connected on three 3-pointers each to add to Cal’s 11 for the game – its third game of the season with double-digit triples.
“Kayla sets the tone for us defensively,” Cal head coach Charmin Smith said. “We forced 24 turnovers and I'm sure her ball pressure had a ton to do with that. Just the way she performed, offensively, nine for 12, shot the lights out and had big shots when we needed them. Every time Gonzaga went to make a run, she came back with a dagger and really proud of how she played.”
In the opening few minutes Suárez found Twidale in transition for a pull up 3-pointer to give the Bears an early 5-0 lead. A slashing layup by Twidale extended the run to 9-0 with 6:53 to go in the quarter. The Zags first bucket didn’t come until the 6:00 mark but they followed up with back-to-back triples to cut the deficit to five points. Williams and Twidale knocked down consecutive triples after Gonzaga got to within three points and Williams then slashed through the defense and made a layup at the buzzer to give Cal a 26-17 lead heading into the second quarter.
In the second quarter, Williams stripped the Zags’ Allie Turner and took it coast-to-coast for a layup and 3-point play opportunity to give the Bears a 30-19 lead – their biggest of the night to that point. Williams then hit a 3-pointer off an assist from Krimili to put the Bears up 35-23 with five minutes to go. After the Zags secured a hustle rebound and hit a 3-pointer in the last minute to go down 10 points, Williams responded with the buzzer-beating 3-pointer going into halftime.
The Zags stayed within 10 points for most of the third quarter until Michelle Onyiah grabbed an offensive rebound and found Krimili for her second 3-pointer of the game to go up 53-40 with 4:32 to go, which sparked a 10-point run of her own capped off by another triple to give the Bears a 16-point lead with under two minutes to go in the quarter. Williams knocked down her fourth 3-pointer of the game towards the end of the quarter to put the Bears up 67-48 going into the final frame. Cal never let the lead get below 17 points in the fourth quarter and coasted to the win.
“I think we did a great job taking care of the ball, which has really been our Achilles heel, so I'm proud of that,” Smith said. “I think we made an effort to rebound better. Still we could have been better there, but taking care of the ball and the way that we can shoot and score the ball definitely were strengths of ours. On the defensive end, to force them into 24 turnovers is huge and bodes well for where we're trying to head defensively and thinking about defending ACC teams.”
Gonzaga was led by Yvonne Ejim’s 27 points and eight rebounds.
NEXT UP
Cal returns to Berkeley to take on Grambling State on Nov. 20 at 7 p.m. PT at Haas Pavilion.
