Westmont falls to Point Loma as season ends for Warriors

SAN RAFAEL, Calif. - Westmont Women's Basketball (18-11) saw its season come to an end in the semifinals of the PacWest Tournament when the Warriors fell to the top-seeded Sea Lions of Point Loma (24-5) by a score of 62-51. Bailey Fong led the way in scoring for the Warriors, tallying 21 points while going five of eight from 3-point range.

"My teammates got me the shots," said Fong of her scoring. "I had a lot of confidence that we could go into this game and give Point Loma a challenge and make them work for a win. I think that we did. I wanted to give it my all. It could go one of two ways. We could either advance to the championship or it could be the last game of the season. I didn't want to leave with any regrets."

"It was a tough game today," acknowledged Westmont's head coach Kirsten Moore. "We had an incredible opponent who has played great all year. We knew that to pull out a victory today, we would have to put all the pieces together and play really well. I think we did that in spurts, but weren't able to put together a full 40 minutes.

"I thought we did a good job with the game plan and took them out of some things they are used to. However, they were able to answer with some players off the bench that stepped up for them.

"You can't fault our effort and we got it done on the boards,"

The Warriors outrebounded the Sea Lions 31-23. With Lisa Kiefer tallying 11 rebounds to go with 10 points, seven assists and three steals.

"I think we started out super excited about the game and confident," said Molly Garnand who tallied six rebounds. "We know that rebounding is essential to winning a basketball game. It showed in the first half, but it became more difficult as the game went."

The first quarter was closely contested with neither team holding more than a three-point lead. Fong led the way with nine points while Kiefer added four. A pair of free throws in the final seconds gave Point Loma a 16-15 lead at the end of the opening frame.

Unfortunately for the Warriors, Sage Kramer picked up her second foul just three minutes into the game and sat out the remainder of the first half. Kramer would tally nine points and five rebounds in 20 minutes of play.

The game remained close in the second quarter. With the game tied midway through the second period, Fong hit her third three, giving the Warriors a 23-20 advantage. However, Westmont did not score again in the first half and Point Loma went on a 6-0 run. As a result, the Sea Lions held a 26-23 advantage at halftime.

Inserted back on the court to start the third quarter, Kramer was the first to score, pulling Westmont to within one (26-25). However, Point Loma went on a 7-0 run to take an eight-point lead with four and one-half minutes remaining in the penultimate period.

Westmont responded with a 7-0 run of its own on a layup by Garnand, a triple by Kramer and a layup by Kiefer, pulling Westmont to within one (33-32). Momentum shifted again, however, and the Warriors found themselves down 39-32 after three Sea Lion layups in a row.

Mariah Brown had the last word, hitting a buzzer beater to make it a 39-34 game headed into the fourth quarter.

In the first three minutes of the fourth quarter, the Sea Lions began to take control by producing a 10-2 run to go up by 13 (49-36). Westmont cut the lead to six (52-46) with a little more than three minutes to play thanks to layups by Kramer and Kiefer and two triples from Fong. However, the Sea Lions closed out the game on a 10-5 run.

Despite playing their final game in the 2024-25 season, the team does not consider this the end of the road.

"I think we have a really bright future," predicted Moore. "I am very confident that this is going to fuel us to become even better next year."

"I think it is amazing that we get to return with mostly the same group," said Garnand. "It means that the offseason begins today. We can use this as fuel. We know the conference better and we can start our work together and make the best of our opportunity."

"We had one senior (Kate Goostrey) on our roster in uniform and one who is a manager (Haylie Dermer) who was an incredible contributor to our program," noted Moore.

"For Kate and Haylie, our two seniors, we are grateful for the journey they have been on with us and for all they have given to being Warriors. That is the hardest part every year, seeing seniors move on. However, we are also so confident that they bring with them really important things that they learned as Warriors that they will have with them for the rest of their lives."

As the Warriors head into the offseason, Moore reflected on the 2024-25 season. "We had a really new, young team. Not just youth, but players that were out with injury last year and were back. We were kind of starting from scratch, trying to figure out what pieces we have and how to put those pieces together to make each other better on the court. I think we grew in that a ton. I am excited because we are going to come into next season light years ahead of where we were at the beginning of this year. I think the future is really bright.

"I am proud of these guys. Every single season brings adversity. We certainly had that this year in a lot of ways. Injuries on the court, but also things off the court that we had to navigate and work through and continue to support each other through hard circumstances. I am proud of how these ladies continued to lean into loving one another well and being problem solvers. I think that problem-solving mentality is what eventually led to the growth you saw on the court where we were playing our best basketball in March and down the stretch."

(Article courtesy of Westmont Athletics).