The562’s coverage of Long Beach State athletics for the 2025-26 season is sponsored by Marilyn Bohl.
Long Beach State (0-3) opened its home schedule on Wednesday evening, facing off against future Big West rival California Baptist (3-0) at Walter Pyramid.
As has been the case so far in 2025, the Beach got off to a sluggish start and never recovered in an 83-60 loss on their home floor.
“We are definitely of the growth mindset right now,” said LBSU head coach Amy Wright on her team’s 0-3 start to the campaign. “I saw a lot of growth in these young women from this past weekend to today, and you can only continue to build on it with a young team. So we are focusing on the positives that did come from today: a lot more points, a lot more assists than what we had been doing, and finally, crashing the boards a little bit.”
Sophomore Judit Oliva Fernandez recorded her first career double-double, setting career highs with 12 points and 11 rebounds. Classmate JaQuoia Jones-Brown led all scorers with a career-high 19 points for Long Beach State, going 6-for-6 at the free throw line while also adding seven rebounds.
Senior Khylee Pepe had her most productive game for the Beach, finishing with 13 points, nine rebounds and five assists to just miss a double-double of her own.
The visiting Lancers raced out to an 18-2 less than five minutes into the game and never gave up their advantage, similar to how things have gone for the Beach in losses at Wyoming and Colorado State last week.
In those games, the Beach trailed 23-4 and 24-4, respectively, after the opening 10 minutes of play. On Wednesday night, the Beach were able to find their footing a little earlier, using an 11-2 run to cut their deficit down to single digits, with CBU leading 22-13 after one.
Long Beach started the second quarter well on consecutive buckets by Oliva Fernandez, as she connected on an elbow jumper then cut for a nice layup off an assist by Kennan Ka, forcing a CBU timeout with the margin cut to just 22-17. However, that’s as close as the Beach would get as they trailed 41-29 at intermission.
CBU jumped out with an 8-2 run to start the second half, getting all eight of those points from Khloe Lemon, who scored a team-high 17 points while going 5/7 from three-point range. Long Beach State was able to trim the lead down to a dozen on consecutive triples by Kylee Pepe and Ka, but the Lancers responded with a 10-0 run over the next 90 seconds to put the game out of reach for good.
The visitors had a big advantage from beyond the arc, connecting on 14 of their 38 three-point attempts, good for 36.8 percent. LBSU was just 4/21 (19 percent) from long range.
Cal Baptist is now 2-0 against Big West opponents this season after also beating city rivals UC Riverside, 56-53, in their season opener. The Lancers have four more games scheduled against Big West schools this season before officially joining the conference in July 2026.
It’s another tough result for a young Long Beach State squad, but the Beach did excel on the glass, holding a 51-42 edge in rebounding over CBU. LBSU had 16 offensive rebounds, leading to a 14-4 edge in second chance points.
“I saw a lot of fight,” said Wright of her team’s performance on the glass. “I saw Khylee fighting, I saw Judit fighting, she had a heck of a game. My guards were crashing, getting in there, poking their nose in there, so I just think we saw a lot of fight. Technique sometimes matters, but what also matters is what’s in your heart. If you want to go get it, you can go get it.”
Sophomore Lauren Cummings collected five of her eight rebounds on the offensive glass, reaching that number in less than 15 minutes off the bench.
The Beach will be back in action on Saturday, hosting another soon-to-be Big West opponent in Sacramento State. Tip-off is scheduled for 2 p.m. inside Walter Pyramid.
