SANTA CRUZ, Calif. -- The top-seeded Christopher Newport women's basketball team led wire-to-wire against #4-seeded University of Mary Washington (17-9) in a dominant 76-54 win in the Coast-to-Coast Athletic Conference semifinals on Friday afternoon. The Captains won their 40th straight game to advance to the C2C Championship on Saturday at 1:00 pm against host and second-seeded UC Santa Cruz. 

Leading the way in the game was junior Anaya Simmons with 23 points on 10-of-14 shooting in the game. She scored 16 of CNU's first 20 points as the Captains raced out to a 20-4 lead in the first quarter and finished out the day with her fifth 20-point performance of the year. While leading the offense, Simmons also snagged five rebounds and three steals with a pair of assists in 25 minutes of action. 

Simmons was one of three CNU players in double figures as Natalie Terwilliger finished 5-for-8 with 13 points and seven rebounds while senior Jessica Foster was terrific from the free-throw line (6-6) and hit a pair of triples for a 12-point effort. 

Coming into the game, leading scorer Sondra Fan needed just six points to reach 1,000 for her career and that's just what she scored for the Captains on Friday afternoon's contest. Fan becomes the 29th CNU Women's Basketball player in program history to score 1,000 points and the first to reach the mark since Sam Porter reached the mark in the 2017-18 season. Fan is the first CNU player to record her 1,000th career point in the Golden State and it came on a perfectly executed step-back jumper from just inside the arc late in the third quarter. 

The Captains opened the game on a 24-4 run to take a 20-point lead just 2:32 into the second quarter. 
The first-half lead would grow to as many as 24 when Foster hit a pair of free throws to make it 35-11 in the second quarter. A three-pointer by Gabbi San Diego with 20 seconds remaining would extend the lead at halftime to 41-18, as the CNU defense suffocated the Eagles attack in the first half. 

Mary Washington shot just 23.8% (5-21) in the first half while the Captains' torrid offense shot 55.6% (15-27).

In the second half, CNU continued to apply the pressure, opening the third quarter on a 9-2 run to take a 30-point lead, 50-20. Natalie Terwilliger banked in a pair of layups and Phylicia McInnis drained a long three-pointer from the corner off a feed by Fan. A Mary Washington run closed the gap to 19 late in the third quarter, but another mini-run by the Captains squashed any thoughts of a comeback. Terwilliger rained in a three followed by layups from San Diego and Julia Ng before Fan's milestone jumper re-took a 26-point edge, 59-33. 

Foster, Simmons, and Terwilliger led a relatively quiet fourth quarter that saw the Captains shoot 50% (5-10) from the field and score 17 points. 

CNU scored 27 points off of turnovers, of which they forced 21 by the Eagles with 11 steals. 

Christopher Newport will return to action on Saturday, February 26 looking to secure the team's third straight conference championship. The Captains will be taking on the host and second-seeded UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs (16-3) at 1:0 pm in Kaiser Permanente Arena. Live stats and a live video webcast will be available online.