PORTLAND, Ore. – The USF women's basketball team got 21 points apiece from senior
Rachel Howard and junior
Anna Seilund as the Dons posted a 75-56 win over Portland on Thursday evening from the Chiles Center.
The Dons (10-8, 4-3 WCC) led for virtually the entire contest as they won their sixth straight over the Pilots. Portland's only lead of the game came right out of the gates as Julie Spencer hit a jumper for the game's first basket. Three minutes later
Michaela Rakova knocked down a three and USF led from that point on.
Kalyn Simon scored 11 points, while Rakova tallied seven points and led the Dons with seven rebounds on the night.
"Really just making sure on offense as a team we were moving the ball," Howard said. "I think for the most part in the first quarter I was just trying to set people up and I think that's key a lot of times when looking for your own shot. We've really been focusing on us. We don't want to worry too much about the opponent, we want to worry about our offense and always making sure we're playing our game."
Howard was locked in throughout the night, sinking her first seven shots and going 7-of-10 from the field overall, including 4-of-7 from distance. She scored 11 of her 21 points in the third quarter where she knocked down three triples. Seilund, meanwhile, went 8-of-16 with three 3-pointers. Both Howard and Seilund handed out a game-high five assists.
This was the second game this season in which two Dons scored at least 20 points, the other being a win at San Diego on Dec. 29 when Simon (22) and Howard (20) broke the 20-point barrier.
In a relatively clean game, both sides committed a season-low 17 combined turnovers with USF committing just one turnover in the first half.
The Dons closed out the final two minutes of the first half on a 10-0 run by making seven field goals in a row as Portland (3-15, 1-6 WCC) went scoreless over the final four minutes, allowing the Dons to take a 40-24 advantage into the intermission.
USF outscored Portland in every quarter except the fourth, where the Pilots held a 17-14 advantage.
Portland scored the first six points of the fourth quarter as the Dons went nearly four minutes without a bucket until Seilund drained a three. The Pilots strung together a 10-2 run over the first seven minutes of the quarter that allowed them to start chipping away at the lead, but USF regained the momentum as Seilund and Simon connected for back-to-back threes with just over three minutes remaining and the Dons never looked back.
Three Pilots registered double figures on the night, led by Spencer's 12 points and seven rebounds. Kaylie Van Loo and Holly Blades each registered 10 points.
USF's 51.8 percent clip from the field was their second-best shooting performance of the year behind a 56.7 percent outing at San Diego.
The Dons return home on Saturday to host the Toreros at 2 p.m. from War Memorial at the Sobrato Center.
Individual game tickets for all USF home games this season are available online at USFDons.com or by calling (415) 422-2USF. General admission tickets are available for as low as $10. All USFCA faculty, staff and students with a valid ID, and youth 12 and under enter free.
Parking for USF home games is typically available free of charge two hours prior to tip-off until one hour after the conclusion of the game in any campus lot, with the exception of designated green parking spots and the top of Hayes-Healy garage.
Tickets are available for USF's Hall of Fame dinner to be held on Feb. 3 at the McLaren Conference Center on campus. Former women's basketball standout Tami Adkins '93 joins Eduardo Rangel '66 (men's soccer), Patrick McGuigan '06 (baseball), James Hardy '78 (men's basketball), and Dr. Sandee Hill (special category) as the 2017 class of inductees into the Father Hubert "Hub" Flynn Hall of Fame. Click here to purchase your tickets today.
