Women’s hoops notches W over Long Beach State

Behind 40 combined points from senior shooting guard Aliyah Mazyck and junior guard Minyon Moore Sunday at Walter Pyramid, the women’s basketball team improved to 2-0 after defeating Long Beach State 86-50.

Mazyck scored 17 of her 19 points in the first half, shooting 6-of-9 from the field and 4-of-6 from beyond-the-arc. Mazyck finished the game with 26 minutes, 19 points and four rebounds.

Moore was 4-of-4 from the field for 10 points in the first half, including 2 points from the free throw line. The junior guard finished with 21 points in 32 minutes, leading all scorers. She also added seven rebounds, seven assists and four steals to her total.

“[Minyon] has an elite skill, and that skill is playing hard,” head coach Mark Trakh said. “She gets after it, she rebounds defends, scores at a high rate … She’s an overall great player.”

The Trojans had some solid performances off the bench. Redshirt sophomore forward Asiah Jones  did not wait long to get her college career started. Coming off her first career college game where she scored 4 points with five rebounds, Jones showed improvement by leading all non-starters in minutes, points and rebounds with 18, 9 and six, respectively. In addition, senior Cheyanne Wallace went 5-of-8 at the free throw line. Wallace finished with 5 points in 16 minutes.

The Trojans began the game fast, scoring 8 straight points before giving up a 3-pointer to sophomore Naomi Hunt three minutes into the game. The Trojans finished the first quarter with a 23-8 run that extended to a 31-9 run four minutes into the second quarter. USC finished a dominant half shooting 60 percent from the field, taking a commanding 51-22 lead at halftime.

“In the first half we focused … we’re executing our offense, we really focused on our defense. So the first half gets an A-plus,” Trakh said. “But we lost our focus, we lost our discipline in the third quarter. We started making mistakes on defense, and made some mistakes on offense … We need to be focused for 40 minutes not 20.”

After a trip to the charity stripe by Wallace in the third quarter, the Women of Troy extended their lead to 37, the greatest margin of the night. USC dominated the post with 38 total points in the paint while out-rebounding the 49ers 50-24. Minyon and senior guard Mariya Moore combined for 16 boards on the night. The Trojans also scored 33 points off Long Beach State’s 24 turnovers, another testament to Trakh’s philosophy of taking advantage of turnovers.

“[My philosophy first comes from] our defense, we do a good job of forcing turnovers,” Trakh said. “I expect that to continue, we have some kids who can defend and I expect that to continue.”

With only two games under their belt, the Trojans have shown what they are capable of, having outscored opponents 159-105 so far.

Freshman guard Justina King led Long Beach State with 12 points and five assists in 39 minutes of play. Junior guard Sydney Bordonaro led all bench players for the 49ers, scoring 12 points on two 3-pointers and four free throws in 15 minutes.

The Trojans look to extend their undefeated record when they return to Galen Center for two home games. They will face UC Santa Barbara Thursday at 7 p.m., and Santa Clara University Sunday at 2 p.m.