Women of Troy unable to maintain momentum in Pac-12 opener


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After a month on the road, the Women of Troy returned to the Galen Center Thursday night to host fourth-ranked Stanford.

The Cardinal defeated USC 61-53 causing the Women of Troy to lose its first conference game and to fall to 5-6 overall.

“It’s getting frustrating when our team is playing well but still comes up short” USC coach Michael Cooper said. “There’s no excuse to lose this game. We had them right where we wanted them.”

USC was carried by the performances of senior guard Ashley Corral, junior forward Christina Marinacci and senior guard Briana Gilbreath. Corral led all scorers with 21 points, Marinacci added 12 points and nine rebounds for USC, and Gilbreath finished with 12 rounds for the evening.

At the 4:30 mark in the first half, USC trailed by as many as 12 points and cut the deficit to three at half. Though leading by one in the second half, USC fell behind after a 11-0 by Stanford.

“We get the energy on our offensive end from defense” Marinacci said. “There was a stretch where we weren’t getting stops and it transferred to the offense. We weren’t able to get that energy back”

Stanford’s sister duo, Chiney and Nnemkadi Ogwumike posted 12 and 19 points respectively, proving to be too much for USC to handle.

The dynamic sisters led the Cardinal on a 15-5 run to seal the victory for Stanford. Nnemkadi Ogwumike had nine points and Chiney Ogwumike added four.

“They took it to another level and we didn’t match it” Corral said. “We lost that game, they didn’t beat us.”

USC hosts California on Saturday at the Galen Center. Tip-off is scheduled for 11 a.m.