The Aggies lead by 5 22-17 at the end of the first quarter in a game being played at a furious pace.

37-36 Aggies at the half. Morgan Bertsch nailed a long 3 pointer at the buzzer to give the Ags a one point lead. The Aggies did not play well in the second quarter and were out hustled by the 49ers.

As they did in the first game against each other, Long Beach is playing very physical inside and have pretty much taken Bertsch out of the game. They are playing her tight and tough and are willing to foul her hard rather than let her score so the Ags have been settling for long 3's and only shooting 6 of 17 from downtown. The big difference in the game though is that LB has 17 points off Aggie TO's and the Ags have 0 against the 49ers.

The Ags must take better care of the ball and be more patient on offense if they are going to be a a position to win at the end of this game.

53-51 Aggies after 3. This one is a battle royale and it looks like it will go down to the wire.

This one hurts folks. The Aggies blew a 9 point lead in the 4th quarter and lost for the 2nd time this year to Long Beach 64-62 after a foul was called on Morgan Bertsch on a scramble for the ball on the floor and LB hit both FT's with 1.8 seconds left. On the ensuing inbound play in the forecourt, the Aggies threw the ball away. Game over.

The Aggies again failed to take care of the basketball when it counted and had two critical unforced TO's while relinquishing their late lead. Instead of going up by 11 or 12, the Ags turned the ball over.

All in all, it was a hard fought game but the 49ers are quicker than the Aggies and out hustled the Ags on the 50-50 balls. The story of the game though is that the 49ers scored 25 points off Aggie TO's while the Ags got just 4 of the same. You can not give up 25 points off TO's and win against good teams.

Now the Aggies must hope that someone else can take down the 49ers. Losing twice to The Beach may come back to haunt the Aggies at the end of conference play. It's too bad because the Aggies are every bit as good as Long Beach but failed to execute at crunch time.

My not so bold prediction: LBSU and UCDavis in the conference finals; and it's hard to beat a team 3x in one year.

That's certainly a possibility PA but the 49ers do a better job of keeping their poise under pressure and execute when it counts the most. The Ags need to learn to do the same.

Another big factor in this game is that LB continually brought in fresh players to keep the pressure up on defense and their bench outscored the Ags 27-6. LB didn't play particularly well on offense (4-22 from 3) but they play hard for a full 40 minutes.