The El Camino College women’s basketball team’s offensive struggles continued on Friday, Nov. 1, as it fell 63-47 in its home opener against the Fullerton College Hornets in the ECC North Gymnasium.
The defending South Coast Conference-South division champion Warriors (0-2) will look to earn their first win of their season when it hosts Citrus College (1-3) on Friday, Nov. 15, at 5 p.m.
ECC has been outscored by its opponent in seven out of the eight quarters it has played this season.
“Early on even though we fell behind on the offensive end I thought we were moving the ball and getting pretty good looks we just weren’t making shots,” Warriors’ coach Steve Shaw said. “Then we fell behind and I thought we got rattled a little bit offensively and didn’t execute.”
Sophomore Ashley Nguyen helped put the Warriors on the scoreboard by maneuvering through the Hornets’ defense to find freshman Jesse Hoffsmith in the paint for an easy layup.
Strong interior defense from both teams kept the game close in the first quarter but Fullerton’s offense began to heat up as it found its shot and ended the quarter on a 7-0 run to take a 18-11 lead over the Warriors.
The Warriors were unable to cut into the deficit as the Hornets took advantage of ECC’s missed second chance point opportunities and finished the first half on top 30-19.
“We made buckets when we needed to get buckets and seemed to get stops when we needed,” Fullerton’s coach Marcia Foster said. “[ECC] is a tough team to play with their penetrators and shooters and we were lucky a couple of times because they were open but the shots didn’t drop.”
Fullerton’s offense stayed hot entering the second half converting a lot of easy buckets in the paint and uncontested shots against the Warriors to ultimately run away with the victory.
“Because we’re so young there’s going to be inconsistencies,” Shaw said. “That’s all part of the growth of a younger team. The pieces are there we just have to continue to work and get better.”
Nguyen led all scorers in the game with 13 points 6-for-14 shooting while dishing out three assists for ECC. Alexia Mason finished with 12 points and 10 rebounds while Hoffsmith also added 10 points for the Warriors.
Freshman Taylor Hart struggled offensively scoring only two points on 1-for-15 shooting after leading ECC in scoring in its previous game. However, still contributed as she gathered seven rebounds, two assists, four steals and a block in the game.
Moriah Serrano led the Hornets’ offense with 11 points. Janelle Ramos added 10 points and six rebounds while Katie Salas finished with eight points and 16 rebounds for Fullerton.
