No. 24 Cal Extends Win Streak To Six Against Fordham

BERKELEY – Ioanna Krimili had her NCAA-leading 25th career game with five 3-pointers and Michelle Onyiah was a perfect 6-for-6 from the field to help the No. 24 California women’s basketball team come away with a 69-53 win over Fordham in the first game of the Raising The B.A.R. Invitational at Haas Pavilion on Saturday evening. The Golden Bears (12-1, 1-0 ACC) will face the winner of the game between Temple and Xavier in the championship game at 5 p.m. PT tomorrow. The win snapped Fordham’s (6-4) four-game winning streak and puts the Bears one win closer to matching their best start to a season since 2016-17 when they also started 13-1.

Krimili finished with a team-high 19 points followed by Onyiah’s 15 and Lulu Twidale’s 10.

In the first quarter, Cal used an 11-0 run powered by triples from Twidale, Krimili and Kayla Williams to jump out to a 13-2 lead with under seven minutes to go. The Bears cooled off going 0-7 over a two-minute period but only gave up two points during that span. Gabrielle Abigor found a cutting Twidale for a layup to end the drought at the 4:04 mark and Cal would take a 22-10 lead going into the second quarter.

Cal got off to a slow start to begin the second quarter with only two points over the first four minutes but still maintained a 24-17 advantage. The Bears didn’t score their second field goal until just under five minutes to go when Zahra King drove the lane for a layup but by then the Rams were within five points at 26-21. Cal’s eighth turnover of the game led to a Rams’ fastbreak layup to cut the lead to just three points with 3:48 to go. A four-point play opportunity for Krimili at the 1:30 mark helped the Bears regain some separation and Cal took a 33-25 lead into the break.

Abigor scored on an up and under move to put Cal back up 10 points with 7:22 to go in the third quarter. After Fordham hit a corner triple to get within seven points, Twidale drove the baseline for a layup, got fouled and converted the 3-point play. Jayda Noble followed up with her own 3-point play two possessions later to put Cal up 48-37 with just over two minutes left in the quarter.

Williams drilled a 3-pointer to give the Bears their biggest lead of the game up to that point at 61-46 with 5:30 to go in the game. That fueled an 8-0 run capped by Krimili’s fourth triple of the game at the 3:57 mark. The Rams however would respond with a 7-0 run in less than a minute to get within 11 points with 2:43 to go. Krimili would drain a triple (her fifth of the game) from about 30 feet with the shot clock expiring at the 1:10 mark to put any Fordham comeback to rest.

“I'm happy we won,” Cal head coach Charmin Smith said. “I think we know we need to play a lot better and I think that we will do that tomorrow, but this isn't how we want to play. Credit to Fordham for getting us out of our rhythm and making it really tough for us on the offensive end. We need to be better.”

Fordham was led by Taylor Davidson’s 24 points.