The UC Irvine Women’s Basketball (20-4, 11-2) faced off against the Cal Poly Mustangs (3-21, 1-13) on Feb. 12 at the Bren Events Center. The game ended 84-39 in favor of Irvine.
Irvine’s junior forward Summah Hanson won the tipoff, and on their second possession, the Anteaters opened the game’s scoring courtesy of a three from senior guard Hunter Hernandez. Defensively, Irvine was determined to prevent good opportunities for Cal Poly from three.
On the other side of the court, Cal Poly wanted to protect the paint, collapsing on anyone trying to drive to the rim. To begin the quarter, the Mustangs looked out of their depth trying to deal with the full court press. Irvine looked the exact opposite, making use of the increased space from the midrange and the three to knock down shots and race out to an 8-0 lead.
A tough layup from redshirt sophomore Alana Goosby opened Cal Poly’s tally for the night, but Irvine’s junior point guard Shirel Nahum responded with a midrange of her own. Irvine went scoreless for the next three minutes, which Cal Poly used to their advantage to cut the lead down to one. However, a deep three by senior guard Jada Wynn broke the scoreless streak and extended the lead to four. Both teams turned up their scoring over the next two minutes and both scored six points. The quarter ended 19-15, with Irvine leading by four.
Irvine came into the second quarter on fire, hitting two quick threes to make the lead 10. After a brief scoreless period, Cal Poly’s sophomore guard Vanessa McManus cut the Irvine lead down to eight with a layup off a fastbreak. After a Cal Poly three cut the lead further down to five, Irvine went on a mini-run to extend the score back up to twelve.
After struggling to hit threes for the majority of the game up until this point, Irvine finally saw their shots go in and closed out the half with a 12-4 run. The first half ended 44-24, in favor of Irvine.
On their first possession of the second half, Cal Poly’s freshman forward Charish Thompson hit a deep midrange jumper, which she quickly followed up with a heavily contested layup on the next possession. The Irvine defense quickly stifled the Cal Poly offense and went on a scoring explosion of their own, scoring 14 in the next four minutes.
After holding the Mustangs to just nine the entire quarter, and scoring 28 themselves, Irvine found themselves with a 39 point lead heading into the fourth quarter. The third quarter ended 72-33.
An and-one layup from junior guard Haley Hernandez opened both teams’ tab for the fourth quarter. Knowing the result of the game was a foregone conclusion, both teams put in their younger players. Cal Poly, while initially cutting down the Irvine lead to 42, eventually found themselves on the wrong end of an Irvine run that extended the Irvine lead up to 45. The game ended 84-39.
Irvine’s Wynn and Nahum ended as the top scorers in the game, scoring 21 and 16 respectively. Wynn had yet another game where she was on fire from three, going five for seven from three, which ties her season high in made threes. This win was Irvine’s tenth of the season where they led by more than twenty, and the team matched their season high in threes made, with 14.
On Feb. 14th, Irvine faced off against California State University, Fullerton in which the Anteaters were victorious 77-71 in Fullerton, Calif. On Feb. 19, Irvine played California State University, Long Beach, which the Anteaters won 77-62 in Irvine, California. Irvine goes on to play University of California, San Diego on Feb. 21st in La Jolla, California.
Aaron Jaison is a Sports Writer for the Winter 2026 quarter. He can be reached at ajaison@uci.edu.
Edited by Jack Fedor and Sasha Alikhanov