By Esteban Ramirez

Sports Editor

It was a perfect season at home for the CSU Bakersfield women’s basketball team.

CSUB was able to finish the regular season 16-0 at home on senior night by cruising past Utah Valley University 78-54 for a Western Athletic Conference win at the Icardo Center on March 7.

CSUB (22-7, 11-3 WAC) was not only able to stay perfect at home for the whole season. The Roadrunners also extended their current home-game winning streak to 22 straight games, which is currently tied for the fourth longest active streak with the University of Maryland.

This was the first time since the 2002-2003 season and the second time ever that a CSUB women’s basketball team has gone undefeated at home.

“An undefeated season at home that’s huge and that’s remarkable,” CSUB coach Greg McCall said.

Redshirt-senior guard Tyonna Outland said that the game was bittersweet because it was her final home game at the Icardo Center.

“I was just thinking about it that this is my final home game and that I’m not going to be playing here anymore,” she said. “It has just been a great year and I have no regrets.”

However, Outland would have one more special moment during her final home game.

With CSUB leading UVU 30-17 with 7:20 left in the first half, Outland made the second of two free throw attempts to reach 2,000 points for her career. After making the free throw, McCall called a timeout to honor Outland with a special game ball for reaching the milestone.

“It’s a great feeling to accomplish something else,” Outland, who finished with a game-high 21 points, said. “I couldn’t do any of this without my team believing in me.”

Outland is the 399th Division I women’s basketball player to ever achieve this milestone.

The Roadrunners were able to cruise past the Wolverines thanks to a fast start and 23 turnovers by UVU. Senior guard Brooklynn Hinkens finished with 14 points and fellow senior guard Shaquita Smith added 11 points.

Now with the regular season over, the Roadrunners can now put their attention on the WAC Tournament, which will be in Las Vegas. CSUB, who is the number two seed will play against the number seven seed Chicago State University in the first round on March 11 at 4:30 p.m.

“This is really where we start our business at,” McCall said. “We have been there before. We know what to expect and we know all the in and outs of what we need to do. We know how to rest our bodies, but we got to make sure that we are ready to take care of business.”

Smith added that she is not worried about any of the other teams in WAC Tournament.

“I am not worried about anybody,” Smith said. “We can take them all. “This is what we do. We go out, play hard, we focus on the team we got that day and we move on to the next team.”