The UCLA Bruins defeated the South Carolina Gamecocks 79-51 on Sunday in the national championship game, bringing home the national title for the first time in the history of the women’s basketball program.
“It’s immeasurably more than I could ask or imagine,” head coach Cori Close said after the game, via ESPN. “It’s beyond my wildest dreams.”
Bruins star Lauren Betts allowed the team to dominate from inside-out, the same way they’ve dominated throughout the season. Although it was senior Gabriela Jaquez who may have left the biggest impact on the floor, finishing the game with 21 points, 10 rebounds and five assists.
“The confidence we came out with, we just knew we were going to win,” Betts said.
“My dream was to be at UCLA,” Gabriela Jaquez, who spent her entire career at UCLA said. “It brought tears to my eyes when Coach Cori offered me. We were determined, the core group, to do something UCLA hadn’t done before in the NCAA era.
“That was important for us. We always believed. We always believed. Job is finished.”
“I’ve been here six years, and in the conversations that we’ve had about what it’s going to take, she’s always believed that this would be the outcome, if the work and the focus and the team and the right pieces came together, and it did with this team,” UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond said.
About Qwame Skinner
Qwame Skinner has loved both writing and sports his entire life. In addition to his sports coverage at Comeback Media, Qwame writes novels, and his debut; The First Casualty, an adult fantasy, is out now.