SLO Reporter

After a 14 day break, the Cal Poly women's basketball team will return to action this weekend to conclude a four-game homestand.

The Mustangs (3-4) will host Northern Arizona Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m. inside Mott Athletics Center for their final non-conference home game of the season.

This will be Cal Poly's fifth home game of the season. So far, the Mustangs are 2-2. Most recently, they defeated San Jose State Nov. 26 62-53 to mark the third win of the season, already matching their win total from last season.

Through the first seven games of the season, Cal Poly's strength of schedule ranks ninth in the country. The Mustangs have already played a now-ranked UCLA team, No. 2 Stanford, and No. 1 South Carolina.

Sophomore guard Annika Shah leads the team in scoring at 10.3 points per game while leading the team is assists at 3.0 per game. She's led the team in scoring in each of the last four games. Junior forward Natalia Ackerman leads the team in rebounds at 4.6 per game.

In the win over the Spartans, Cal Poly shot a season-high 50 percent from three (8-16) and made a season-high 14 free throws (14-19).

In all three of Cal Poly's wins this season, the Mustangs have shot at least 41 percent from the field, 74 percent from the free throw line, and have held opponents to no more than 53 points.

Following Saturday's game against the Lumberjacks, Cal Poly will hit the road for its final two non-conference games of the season against Seattle University Dec. 19 and Montana State Dec. 21.

Scouting Northern Arizona: The Lumberjacks head into the week 4-5 overall this season. Last week, they beat Southern Utah at home, 76-65 to snap a three-game losing streak. Cal Poly will be looking to avenge a loss to NAU last season in Flagstaff. NAU leads the all-time series 5-3.

Returning Mustangs: Despite losing two starters from last year, Cal Poly brings back plenty from last year's team. Two  of the team's top three scorers are back this year.

Senior guard Maddie Willett returns after being second on the team in scoring last year at 8.9 ppg while leading the team in made threes and three point percentage.

Senior forward Julia Nielacna is also back after averaging 8.3 ppg last season while playing in 24 of 25 games and starting 11.

In addition to those two, there are five players back this season who played in at least 22 games last year.

New Stangs: Cal Poly added seven newcomers to this year's team, four freshmen and three Division I transfers. The three transfers consist of graduate student Nikola Kovacikova, graduate student Oumou Toure, and junior Taylor Wu.

Kovacikova comes to Cal Poly after previously playing at both Penn and Georgetown. Last season at Penn, she played in 19 games with eight starts. Off the court, she earned Penn's Norman J. Goldring Prize and George H. Frazier Prize which is given to a senior female student-athlete with the highest GPA. She spent her first two collegiate seasons at Georgetown. As a sophomore in 2019-20, she appeared in 27 games with 12 starts and was the Hoyas' third-leading scorer, averaging 7.9 ppg.

Toure comes to Cal Poly after having spent the last three years at Butler. She played her freshman season before missing the next two due to injury and the COVID pandemic. As a freshman in 2019-20, she was named to the Big East All-Freshman Team. That season, she appeared in 27 games, making 20 starts and ranked second on the team in scoring at 9.1 points per game while shooting 46 percent from the field to go along with 6.1 rebounds per game. She also led the Big East and ranked 45th in the NCAA in steals per game at 2.33.

Wu spent the last three seasons at California Baptist University where she played in 70 career games. She made her mark as a freshman in 2019-20, averaging 6.6 ppg, 1.7 rpg, 1.7 apg in 18.4 minutes per game. She broke the program's freshman single game scoring record after dropping 37 points against Ottawa (AZ) and in the same game broke the program record for threes made in a game with 10.

As a sophomore, she started 19 of 27 games, averaging 8.9 ppg, 1.7 apg, and 21.9 minutes per game. She scored in double figures 11 times including a season-high 15 against Pepperdine. 

Original source can be found here.