Box score
Fresno, Cailf. – The Fresno Pacific women's basketball team hosted William Jessup in a non-conference game played at FPU's Special Event Center earlier this afternoon. The Sunbirds went into the contest coming off a 74-57 exhibition loss the night earlier against cross-town rival Fresno State.
The Sunbirds started of slowly, but gained momentum as the first half went on. Lead by senior guard Samantha Cardeno who had 6 points in the first half, FPU was able to take an early lead and slowly build off of it. Bricali Cooley and Shirin Turujman also put up 5 points each which helped the Sunbirds go into the halftime intermission leading the Warriors 30-22.
Fresno Pacific opened the second half playing with more purpose and determination, and raised their overall level of play. Bricali Cooley contributed 12 points on the night going 4-6 from the field to help extend FPU's lead. Cardeno would also turn it up in the second half to finish with a game high 15 points and 4 steals.
The Sunbirds were also strong on the boards lead by Jessica Torrecillas who grabbed 9 rebounds and scored 10 points, and Courtney Crosson who had 6 boards.
FPU would go on to convincingly defeat the Warriors 66-36 and improve to 2-0 on the season.
Sunbird's head coach Meredith Pulliam was encouraged by tonight's performance. “We got off to a bit of a slow start,” acknowledged Pulliam, “but at halftime we asked the team to refocus and start playing within themselves and the structure of our offensive set-up. We also wanted them to increase their defensive effort, which they were able to do that lead to some easy transition baskets for us.”
The Sunbirds will be back in action Thursday November 13th when they host the Melbourne Roos in an exhibition at FPU's Special Event Center. Tip-off is scheduled for 5:30PM.
