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SAN FRANCISCO – Spurred by a 27-point, 11-rebound double-double off the sharp shooting of senior
Mel Khlok, the San Francisco women's basketball survived a late-game rally by the Portland Pilots before coming away with an 88-81 win at War Memorial Gym on Saturday.
The win snaps a five-game skid for the Dons, who pick up its first West Coast Conference victory on the season, moving to 8-9 overall, 1-3 in the WCC. The Pilots staged a furious comeback to nearly erase a 23 point second half lead before falling to 5-11 on the season and 0-3 in WCC action.
The Dons were helped by an 8-of-16 outing from the outside to pick up 24 points on the perimeter. Coupled with 30 points in the paint, USF's offense was wide-ranging on the day. Along with Khlok's team-leading 27 points and 11 rebounds, she added four assists and four steals in the contest. Her double-double is the first of her four-year career at USF. Khlok was 14-of-18 from the free throw line, career records for both attempts and makes from the stripe for the senior from Sacramento, Calif.
Taylor Proctor used a 4-for-7 day from long-range to finish with 19 points and two blocks for USF. The Dons got 14 points from Zhane Dikes and
Alicia Scafidi added 10 points and nine rebounds to round out the double-digit scoring.
“Getting it into the post really helps a lot,” Proctor said. “[Denae] Mary [Williams] and I work great together, we know where we're going to be. It's really key to establishing the open shooters on the outside and then we can get it inside too.”
USF found itself in the driver's seat six minutes into the second half. An offensive rebound by Denae Mary Williams allowed
Taj Winston to capitalize on a second-chance scoring opportunity on a layup with 14:23 to play. After back-to-back 3-pointers by
Mel Khlok and Proctor the USF lead grew to 63-40, the largest advantage of the day.
But the Pilots used an 18-4 run to get back into the game and put the score at 71-63 with 6:52 to play. Later in the half, Portland used a string of seven straight unanswered points capped by a triple from Ellen Nurmi to cut the USF lead to two points with 2:55 to play. However, the Dons took care of business at the free throw line, with Khlok hitting 6-of-8 down the stretch and Winston adding another to close the contest out with USF as the victors.
“They had a couple runs,” Khlok said of the Pilots in the second half. “It did make us a little nervous, but coming together as a team, looking into each other's eyes and knowing we've got each other's back kind of puts the nervousness away.”
Annika Holopainen, freshman forward from Helsinki, Finland, gashed the Dons for 29 points on 13-of-17 shooting to lead the Pilots in the losing effort. USF narrowly won the battle of the boards 45-43, but Portland earned 14 second chance points off 12 offensive rebounds, compared to USF's six.
The Dons finished with the 45.5 to 42.1 percent shooting advantage in the game, but came out of the contest with 21 less attempts from the field. USF's ability to get to the line 43 times, compared to Portland's 17 attempts from the stripe, proved to be a big deciding factor in the victory.
USF hits the road to head south for the second consecutive week, facing Loyola Marymount on Thursday at 7 p.m.
Women's Basketball vs. Portland Gallery
