Clerendon leads No. 7 Cal women over Utah 55-50

"We struggled to score in the second half and honestly that's a concern, but I knew it was going to be a tight game," Cal coach Lindsay Gottlieb said. "I like the way we responded down the stretch."

After Utah pulled within four points with 2:34 remaining on Michelle Plouffe's pull-up jumper, the Bears forced the Utes into a pair of misses.

Cal then made 8 of 10 free throws down the stretch to seal the win.

The Utes' missed opportunities early in the second half were critical after they held Cal scoreless over the first six minutes but managed just six points of their own.

"We stopped them time after time," Utah coach Anthony Levrets said. "With a team that's athletic, you have to make sure you have good long possessions and make them guard you and hope that you can make a few. We missed some easy ones, but Cal gets a lot of credit. They are a very talented athletic group."

Layshia Clerendon led Cal with 18 points and Afure Jemerigbe had 13, including 11 in the first half when she hit 5 of 6 shots.

"We feel like we're a team that has five threats to score at any time,"Gottlieb said. "Afure really just took what was there. Tonight they focused on loading the paint to stop penetration by Brittany Boyd and our post players. . She's a big-time guard and to have her be able to step up when we needed was important."

In the second half, the key were back-to-back 3-pointers by Clerendon and Boyd followed by Gennifer Brandon's short baseline jumper that bumped Cal's lead to 13 and forced the Utes into rally mode.

Plouffe scored 16 points to lead Utah (9-3, 0-1), which trailed by 13 points with 6:10 remaining before pulling within three in the closing seconds. Taryn Wicijowski's jumper with 2 seconds left cut the Utes' deficit to 53-50, but Jemerigbe was fouled and sank both free throws to seal the win.