Box Score |
Video Highlights
BOISE, Idaho – A slow start to the early game didn't put a damper on the San Francisco women's basketball team's trip to Boise, as the Dons escaped the Taco Bell Center with a 76-70 victory Saturday afternoon.
The Dons were led by freshman
Rachel Howard's 20 points and four steals on the day.
Aundrea Gordon netted 14 points on 6-of-7 shooting and four assists for USF.
Hashima Carothers, a freshman from Las Vegas, Nev., added a career-high 12 points, including a 6-of-8 outing from the line, and five rebounds. Everyone who entered the game for the Dons put points on the board in the victory.
After the contest, both USF and Boise State sport a 4-5 overall record heading into the closing stretch of the non-conference schedule.
"So many different people tonight did really big things," coach
Jennifer Azzi said. "What I really appreciated about today was the maturity of the team and seeing two freshmen step up huge. Hashima coming in and giving huge minutes, and same thing with Rachel – clutch. Also Aundrea coming in, having not played a ton – coming off a knee injury, broke her finger – she really played with so much poise tonight and helped us a ton. Mary [Williams] came in and gave us a big boost. It's going to need to be that way from now on, and as we continue to get healthy we'll have more weapons."
After a first half which saw the Dons turn the ball over 13 times, leading to 21 Boise State points, USF found itself in a double-digit deficit for the third straight contest. The Broncos led by as many as 12 points with 9:28 to play in the opening period, after the Broncos went on a 9-0 run to set the score at 23-11 in favor of the home team.
First of all, we dug a hole. And then we had to crawl back out of it, and that just makes life so much harder," Azzi said. "We're going to have to figure that out. We're going to have to watch the film and see if there's anything we can learn in these three games because we can't pull out a miracle like UNLV or this game every night. We've got to figure out how we can put two second halves together, essentially."
Playing from behind for the first 28 minutes in the contest, USF nabbed its first lead of the day with 11:55 remaining in the game. Howard grabbed an errant pass from the Boise State offense and dished to a streaking
Zhané Dikes for the second time in three plays to give USF a 50-49 advantage. From that point forward, the Dons never relinquished the lead to the Broncos, but not without some tense moments to cap the game.
The last tie of the contest came as Miquelle Askew's hook shot over the Dons' defense knotted the score 55 apiece with just over seven minutes remaining. The Dons regained the advantage nearly two minutes later as Dikes fed a wide open
Claudia Price in the post and the freshman powered the uncontested layup up and in with 5:22 to go.
The layup sparked a 14-5 run for USF that included eight straight points for the Dons from the hand of Howard. The largest advantage for the Dons in the game, nine points, came as Gordon's runner in the lane as the shot clock was expiring put the score at 69-60 with 1:41 remaining.
But Boise State battled back with the next five points after Askew converted an and-1 opportunity and Keiahnna Engel sunk a pair of free throws with 56.7 seconds to play. The Broncos reduced the USF advantage to a one-possession game when Lexie Der's 3-pointer found its mark with 42.9 ticks on the clock. Howard's jumper with 17.7 seconds to play extended the Dons' lead to five, but a quick layup by Boise State's Brooke Pahukoa narrowed the gap back to three points with 9.6 seconds to play.
The Broncos fouled Dikes on the inbounds play, and the sophomore from Las Vegas, stepped to the line. After hitting every side of the rim before falling in, Dikes lined it up for her second attempt, which hit the front iron. Carothers pulled down her second offensive rebound of the game and got her first shot as a collegian to ice the game. She swished both attempts as the Dons held on to defeat the Broncos 76-70, as the team notched its second road win of the season.
"They should gain a lot of confidence from playing well in the second half, but at the same time as we begin to play against WCC teams it's going to be tough to do that," Azzi said of the Dons' second come-from-behind win in the last seven days. "I think the preseason is a lot about us and what we do, so I think the keys heading into the final two non-conference games are just continuing to execute and rebound, and doing all the fundamental things that we need to do to become a better team."
USF returns to War Memorial Gym to face UMKC Wednesday at 7 p.m.
