March 6, 2008

Final Stats

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(San Diego, CA) - San Francisco led nearly the entire game before Santa Clara pushed through and edged the Dons 89-84 in the first round of the 2008 West Coast Conference tournament at the Jenny Craig Pavilion. With the win, the Broncos (20-10) move on to play the winner of the No. 1 Gonzaga and No. 8 Pepperdine game. The Dons (14-16) continue to have trouble with the Broncos in tournament play, falling to 0-6 versus SCU in the postseason.

With 18 points in the contest, senior guard Dominique Carter finishes her Dons career with 1800 points, second only to USF Hall-of-Famer Mary Hile-Nepfel (1977-81), who scored 2,324 on the Hill Top. Carter is now third all time in conference charts, trailing Saint Mary's Tracy Morris (1996-2000) but just two points. The Tracey, CA native scored 538 points in 30 games this season, good for sixth place on USF's single season scoring chart.

Also having a spectacular game for USF was junior guard Shay Rollins, who led all Dons scorers with 21 points this afternoon. She ends the season as the Dons second leading scorer with 12.7 ppg. Sophomore forward Heidi Heintz scored 18 points, and added five rebounds and two assists. Senior guard Nykia Peace rounded out the double figurer scorers for USF with 13. She also had three rebounds and her two assists added to her team leading season total of 89. Senior center Lisa Olden put down eight points, two rebounds, an assist, a block, and a steal. She finished the season as the Dons blocks leader with 28. Junior forward Necolia Simmons pulled down six rebounds along with six points. Simmons led the Dons on the boards this season with 7.3 rpg (218).

USF got off to a fast start, leading by 11 (16-5) in the first six minutes of the game and finishing the first half up by six (41-35). The Dons capitalized when needed; scoring 15 points off turnovers and 12 second chance points in the first half. In the second, SCU tied it at 55-55 eight minutes in before the Dons went on an 11-3 run over the next two minutes. USF led by as much as 11 (73-62) with eight minutes remaining before Santa Clara started to make a significant move. The Broncos captured the lead with 1:32 remaining and ended the game on a 9-5 run to earn the slim victory.

Head Coach Tanya Haave spoke about her team's efforts, "I thought that for 37, 38 minutes we had a great game. We just ran out of gas. You have to give credit to Santa Clara. They just kept coming at us and coming at us and we just ran out of gas. We still had a great season though. It was a big improvement from last year and I couldn't be prouder. We played well for a lot of the year. This was a team I've seen a lot of this year. We were shooting the ball well, moving the ball. Like I said, just not quite enough but it's the best we've played in a while and we played really well at home against Santa Clara."

SCU's senior forward Jen Gottschalk scored a career high 31 points to lead all scorers and added eight rebounds and two assists. Other double figurer scorers for the Broncos were junior guard Elizabeth Doran with 17, junior guard Sara Majors with 13, and senior guard Tracey Walker with 12.

Santa Clara held the advantage in shooting (.540/27-50) and 3-point shooting (.450/9-20) compared with the Dons .413/31-75 and .407/11-27. The Dons however fared better in every other category, shooting a fabulous 100% from the line (11-11) compared to SCU's .867 (26-30). USF also had more rebounds, 37-32, and less turnovers 14-17 in the contest.