IRVINE, Calif. – The Chaminade University women's basketball opened their final road trip of the season, dropping a 60-50 decision to Concordia University Irvine Saturday at CU Arena.
Destiny Castro (Talofofo, Guam/Notre Dame HS), who earlier this week was named the Pacific West Conference Defender of the Week and D2 HERO of the Week, continued her standout sophomore campaign, corralling her third straight double-double with 22 points and 10 rebounds for the Silverswords. The conference's steals leader with 3.2 coming into the game, collected three more along with two assists.
Breann Nueku (Honolulu/Clark College) added 12 points and three boards while
Diamond Carter (Kapolei, Hawai'i/Olympic College) had eight points and six rebounds.
Chaminade fell to 2-15 overall and 2-13 in the PacWest.
Michaela Vanderklugt led the Eagles (13-9, 10-6 PacWest) with 17 points and 15 rebounds.
The contest was the third consecutive double-double for Castro and fourth in the last five games. It also gave the 5-6 guard 10 in her career, becoming just the second Silversword in program history to have double-digit games of double-doubles, trailing only Lilia Maio's program record of 19. She also moved past Kennedi Akana into fifth in the career scoring list with 567 points.
Castro and
Kali Benavente (Tamuning Guam/Academy of Our Lady of Guam) accounted for the 'Swords' first seven points of the opening quarter to help them to a 16-all tie at the end of the first 10 minutes.
Castro buried a 3-pointer to open the second quarter but CUI went on a 13-0 run before the 'Swords managed to salvage a 34-27 halftime deficit.
Concordia built its lead to 17 towards the end of the third quarter but Castro's off-balanced triple as time expired – her career-best third of the game – cut the lead to 49-35.
The Eagles went back up by 16 (51-35) but with the help of 3s from Nueku and Carter, the 'Swords trimmed the deficit to 55-48 with 4:26 remaining. Chaminade seemed to run out of gas from there, missing its final four shots of the period.
The 'Swords were held to just 32.7 percent shooting from the floor to the Eagles' 40.4. Despite being out-rebounded by just three (34-31), they were outscored 26-8 in the paint, 24-10 off turnovers and 19-6 on second-chance points.
The Silverswords will face their first nationally-ranked opponent of the season on Monday when they travel to No. 19 Azusa Pacific.
