Cal Women Give Strong Performance in Loss to No. 9 Notre Dame

Bears were within three points in fourth quarter in the nationally televised game

Being close to pulling off a major upset on national television is not good enough for Cal women's basketball coach Charmin Smith anymore.

You'd think she'd be encouraged by her team's performance against ninth-ranked Notre Dame, since the Bears were within three points midway through the fourth quarter in their 90-79 loss to the Irish Saturday afternoon in St. Louis.

However, there is no such thing as an encouraging loss anymore.

"No, we don't want that," said Smith, who returned to her hometown for this game. "We came here to win. We didn't come here to feel good.

"We're having a shift in this program. We're winners, and I know we didn't win today, but if we don't start talking about it, acting like it, and walking and talking like winners, it'll never happen.

"No, we're not encouraged that we played with the No. 9 team in the country. The goal was to beat the No. 9 team in the country. So we're frustrated, we're disappointed."

The Bears (1-1) seemed to be in position to beat the No. 9 team when sophomore Jayda Curry, who finished with 24 points, hit a long 3-point shot with 7:20 left in the game to get the Bears within three points at 65-62.

A few seconds later, Cal had a chance to tie the score when Curry launched another 3-point shot.  But this one missed, and Notre Dame (2-0) took command from that point.

Curry had another big offensive game, but she started out like it might be even bigger. In the first quarter, she scored 13 points, making 5-of-6 shots and going 3-for-3 on 3-pointers.

She was 3-for-17 the rest of the game, but showed a knack for playmaking with five assists in her 38 minutes of court time.

Mia Mastrov was the other Cal player who scored in double figures, finishing with 10 points.  Notre Dame had five players score in double figures and used its size advantage to score in the paint, get to the foul line (30 made free throws) and dominated the boards, outrebounding Cal 42-26.

Cal forward Jadyn Bush got her first playing time of the season, and she demonstrated her athleticism and energy in her 15 minutes of playing time, getting five points and three rebounds.

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