CSU East Bay’s women’s basketball squad made some noise in a dominant showing against the Alaska Nanooks in a non-conference showdown resulting in a commanding 84-48 victory.

It was clear that the Nanooks (0-2) were overmatched as the game went on.

The Pioneers (2-1) shot 47.4 percent from the field and also took advantage at the free throw line where they shot 77.4 percent.  The Nooks’ would only hit an abysmal 24.5 percent from the field and demonstrated only few highlights statistically.

It was a show conducted by the entire starting squad for the Pioneers, but two would stand out as junior forward Brianna Terrance and freshman guard Tori Breshers would put on a clinic.

Breshers led the team in scoring with 16 points and eight rebounds, and missed minimally.

Terrance would be hot on her heels with 14 points and seven rebounds as three more Pioneers reached double figures in the scoring column.

Terrance was impressed with the team’s play on the night.

“We saw the other team trying to run and gun so we controlled the tempo,” she explained while catching her breath. “We were matched up well [in size] but we ran really good sets. We adjusted better from more practice.”

Control the tempo they did.  In the first half it took the Pioneers a little bit of time to get going, but once they settled in there was no looking back. It looked as if there could have been a good size battle between Alaska senior guard Taylor Altenburg and Pioneers senior forward Lauren Lucchesi, but Altenburg’s defense was not getting the job done as Luchesi was hitting guarded shots from inside the arc.

CSUEB seemed as if they could do no wrong the entire evening.

They were pulling down both offensive and defensive rebounds taking advantage of the subpar rebounding skills of Alaska as the 5’9” Terrance was outrebounding players five to six inches taller.

For everything that went by right by the book on the Pioneers’ side of the ball, you could see what was done wrong on the Nooks’ side.

The Pioneers were boxing out the Nooks offense from the paint forcing their smaller less talented guards take shots that they couldn’t make and taking away driving and passing lanes eventually forcing Alaska to cough up 20 turnovers.

That was evident in the Nooks first half shooting percentage of 16.7 percent.

Pioneer junior forward Cassie Coble would demonstrate her shooting skills for an inside player, by draining two three’s before the half giving the Pioneers a 19 point lead.

In the second half, the Pioneers would bring more pain.

At first glance it looked as if the Nooks were going to make a momentum shift as they started speeding up the tempo of the game by applying more pressure defensively to cause turnovers, but they couldn’t capitalize when they got down to the net.

Any momentum that was building for the Nooks was killed almost instantly when senior guard Nia Bravo accepted a pass from a steal and took the ball down the length of the court performing a perfect layup to energize her crowd and the team as they would extend their lead to more than 30 points.

Coach Suzy Barcomb thought her team played a good game overall.

“I thought we ran really good offensive sets and [got] some good looks at the basket while executing a good shooting percentage,” she says briefly.  “Our focus is always on defense and boards and when we do that we know we can stay in games.”

The Pioneers have yet to play a conference game but will get their first crack of the season against San Francisco State Nov 30.