first quarter

The No. 3 UCLA women’s basketball team won its first game of the season, defeating feisty San Diego State 77–53 on Monday at the Honda Center.

The Bruins (1–0) built an eight-point lead in the first quarter, but the unranked Aztecs (0–1) managed to cut the deficit by three by the end of the period.

San Diego State struggled to score in the second quarter when UCLA went on a 12–2 run.

The scoring gap continued to increase as the Bruins extended their lead to 15 points, ending the first half with a 37–22 advantage.

UCLA center Lauren Betts scored 21 points and grabbed four rebounds, guard Gabriela Jaquez recorded a double-double with 15 points and 11 rebounds and guard Charlisse Ledger-Walker, who returned to the court after redshirting last season, contributed 12 points and five assists.

The Bruins opened the third quarter with a 16–0 run. Although the Aztecs fought hard to close the gap, the Bruins maintained control, ending the quarter with a 58–38 lead.

San Diego State pushed UCLA again in the fourth quarter, but the Aztecs couldn’t make a meaningful dent in their deficit.

Aztecs sophomore guard Kaelyn Hamilton came off the bench to lead her team with 11 points, while guards Nat Martinez and Nala Williams scored 10 points apiece.

UCLA will play its home opener Thursday against UC Santa Barbara.

Nobody knows why cramps really happen, but Friday night’s Gardena Serra-Sierra Canyon high school football game took the issue to an unprecedented level.

Serra players kept cramping on defense, repeatedly slowing down Sierra Canyon’s up-tempo offense. By the end of the third quarter, Sierra Canyon coach Jon Ellinghouse had seen enough. His 11 offensive players, at his direction, simultaneously went to the ground and engaged in fake cramping.

That caused an enraged Serra coach Scott Altenberg to go on the field and be held back by others. Officials halted the game briefly and called 15-yard penalties on Sierra Canyon and Serra.

Ellinghouse said after his team’s 30-0 victory that he was frustrated with the repeated game stoppages and in hindsight, regrets having his players engage in the fake cramps.

Altenberg said he was never angrier in 27 years of coaching. He denied his team was faking cramps to influence the game. “I’m not that kind of coach,” he said.

It wasn’t the only controversy on Friday night. Salesian scored 91 points to beat Cantwell-Sacred Heart 91-13. It was 84-7 at halftime.

Salesian coach Anthony Atkins said he started substituting in the first quarter. There was no running clock until the third quarter. Cantwell-Sacred Heart apparently didn’t ask for a running clock in the first half.

In a text message, Atkins said, “I went back and watched the film just to make sure there wasn’t any malice or that it didn’t look like we were trying to run up the score. Honestly, there was nothing more we could have done short of sitting our guys for the entire game.”

The Mira Costa-Lawndale game was halted with Mira Costa ahead 14-0 in the first quarter because of a security threat at Mira Costa after a bullet was discovered on campus. Also canceled was a girls’ volleyball tournament.

In a developing story, standout quarterback Brady Smigiel of Newbury Park was injured in a game against Santa Barbara and left in the second half. Smigiel, who has committed to Michigan, was expected to get an MRI exam on a knee on Saturday.

For nearly four magical minutes in the first quarter, an upset of the WNBA’s best team seemed scarily possible.

What seemed scarier, perhaps, was that the team doing the damage spent most of the season fighting to crawl out of the league’s cellar.

For those 3 minutes and 59 seconds, the Sparks rattled off 16 consecutive points as Crypto.com Arena transformed into both a basketball spectacle and animated musical. The children in nearly every section of the Sparks’ home smacked their thundersticks like war drums as tiny voices belted out lyrics to songs from “SpongeBob SquarePant,s” “Moana” and “Frozen.”

It was a mini-Disneyland inside the Sparks’ building on Kids Day, the entire bowl pulsating with shrieks, slaps and sugar highs. For a fleeting stretch, it felt like an exhilarating return to the mid-2010s.

Yet just as quickly as the magic appeared, it vanished. So suddenly, and so drastically, the newest “happiest place on earth” lost its shimmer, replaced by cross-court turnovers, limited looks at the rim and the deflation of momentum as the Lynx (18-3) steamrolled to a 91-82 victory over the Sparks (6-14) on Thursday afternoon.

“You give the best team in the league just easy run-out layups,” guard Kelsey Plum said, in regard to the Lynx gathering 22 more shot attempts than the Sparks, “It was tough. We dug ourselves a hole.”

What had been a 16-0 run to build an 18-7 lead in the first quarter turned out to be the only bright spot amid an otherwise sore 36 minutes. Not just for the players, but for the children with their thundersticks that had less and less reason to make noise.

Lynx guard Alanna Smith drifted into open space at the top of the key to score first with a three for the Lynx. Following a Napheesa Collier walk-in floater, Smith propelled her team to an early 7-2 lead after collecting a sharp entry pass and spinning into a floater on the block.

Smith’s early pace and precision hinted at why the Lynx have only three losses all season. But the control they held in those opening moments evaporated, the momentum being painted purple and yellow.

The 16-point show began in unexpected territory. Plum lit the fuse from beyond the arc. Guard Julie Allemand followed suit on the next trip down. Then forward Rickea Jackson made a wide-open baseline look. And it was threes in three straight possessions for a team that doesn’t make a living from distance.

“The ball was moving, it had some zip on it in that first quarter,” Sparks coach Lynne Roberts said. “Thirteen threes at 48% — Vanloo [guard Julie Vanloo] really helps with that. We’ve been missing that kind of shooter — the kickout and off the dribble,” she added, referring to Vanloo’s five three-pointers.

Yet the lopsided score halfway through the opening quarter had a short lifespan.

What looked like a cushion turned into a trap. After their 16-0 run, the Sparks eased up and the Lynx pounced. Minnesota feasted on sloppy cross-court passes, turning top-of-the-key giveaways into easy transition layups, and worked their way to get back to within four by quarter’s end.

The Lynx erased “deficit” from their dictionary — and just about everything from the Sparks’ playbook. Fueled by nine L.A. turnovers in the second quarter, Minnesota made 11 baskets — nearly as many as the Sparks had shot attempts for a 50-40 halftime lead.

“[Missing] shots that you’re normally not thinking about missing — it can just put a lot of pressure on your offense when you do get an execution,” Roberts said. “But we’ve got to be better defensively, giving up 91 — but they’re really good at whatever it is you do, making it wrong.”

Four minutes in the driver’s seat gave way to the wheels detaching entirely through the remaining two periods. Turnovers mounted, and layups followed as more than a quarter of Minnesota’s points came off miscues.

The Lynx ran away in the third quarter, piling up 30 points — 11 more than the Sparks — to stretch their lead to 80-59. The Sparks threw punches in the fourth and Vanloo caught fire, but the damage was too much for recovery.

Plum finished with 17 points and a game-high 12 assists to lead the Sparks. Jackson added 14 points while Dearica Hamby contributed 12 points and a team-high seven rebounds.

Natisha Hiedeman came off the bench to lead the Lynx with 18 points, while Collier finished with 17 points and a team-high eight rebounds. Courtney Williams had 16 points and a team-high seven assists while Smith scored 15.