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Coming off of what Berkeley head coach Gene Nakamura called the most severe defeat of his career, the Lady ’Jackets rebounded nicely, thrashing the Alameda Hornets and nearly breaking triple digits on the scoreboard. 

Although the Yellowjackets’ final shot rimmed out, it was a convincing 98-40 win for a team that was beaten by 34 points less than a week ago. 

Senior forward Robin Roberson led the way, as usual, with 25 points, but the ’Jackets spread the scoring around, with five players in double figures. 

After Alameda’s Kumauri Willis found holes in the Berkeley defense for two layups that tied the game at 4-4, Berkeley (12-5 overall, 4-0 ACCAL) went on one of their signature runs, using a fierce full-court press to force turnovers and get easy buckets. Before the Hornets (7-10, 1-3) could recover their senses, they had committed 12 turnovers and were behind 25-4. Roberson was hitting from the inside and outside, scoring 11 points and pulling down six rebounds in the quarter despite sitting with 2:30 on the clock. 

“I really neede to step it up mentally,” said Roberson, who had a sub-par game against Hanford. “I wanted to focus on the little things, like rebounding and setting good screens. The shots just came to me.” 

Roberson shook off a slight shooting slump with a 10-of-14 performance, including making both of her three-pointers. 

Alameda lost all five starters from last season, and was missing two of this year’s starters due to injury. But head coach Brad Thomas said that probably didn’t make a huge difference. 

“We’re just not in the same league as them right now,” Thomas said. “Even with our full team, we still lose this game by a lot. Maybe not quite as much, but a lot.” 

Nakamura emptied his bench for most of the second quarter and pulled back the press for the rest of the game, and the Hornets responded started hitting three-pointers. Jenny O’Neall, Meghan Pipkin and Willis all hit long bombs to pull their team to within 20 points, but that was as close as they would come for the rest of the night. They continued throwing up threes, however, and seemed content to settle for perimeter shots against the bigger ’Jackets. 

“That’s the kind of team they are, they love shooting three-pointers,” Nakamura said. “If you give them 62 open threes, they’ll take 62 threes.” 

Friday’s game marked the return to the starting lineup of senior Danielle Milburn, who had been riding the bench for a few games as her play had dropped off early in the season. Nakamura has rotated players in and out of the point guard spot all year. 

“I’m still looking for a fifth player to step up and take the spot alongside my four starters,” Nakamura said. “Danielle showed that she can do that tonight.” 

Milburn started quietly, distributing the ball for most of the first quarter and getting her teammates good shots. But she came out of halftime looking to score, and quickly hit two three-pointers to get Berkeley out of the gate running. 

“I was a little shaky at the start, because I didn’t want to mess up my first game back as a starter,” she said. “But I got comfortable, and decided to shoot the ball more.” 

Milburn finished the game with 10 points, and may have cemented her starting spot, at least for a few games. 

The only drama left was to see whether Berkeley could break 100 points for the first time this year. Although Nakamura said he didn’t really want to hit triple digits, his starters were in full roar on the bench, encouraging the players on the floor to go for it. The ’Jackets got the ball back with 6.5 seconds left on the clock, and could only manage an off-balance jumper by freshman guard Joy White that rolled around the rim before dropping off. 

“We wanted to break 100, but coach didn’t want to put us back in,” Roberson said. 

Nakamura said he thought going for a huge point total was disrespectful of the opponent. 

“If I wanted to, we could score 150 points a lot of nights,” he said. “But that’s low-class.”