March 6, 2008

Box Score

SAN DIEGO, Calif. - The Gonzaga University women's basketball team earned a 77-67 victory over Pepperdine University in the first round of the West Coast Conference Tournament Thursday afternoon at the Jenny Craig Pavilion in San Diego Calif. WCC Player of the Year Heather Bowman paced the No. 1 Bulldogs to the win over the No. 8 seeded Waves with a double-double of 26 points and 11 rebounds.

The Zags, who finished the WCC season with a 13-1 mark, improved their record to 23-7 overall, while the Waves ended their season at 10-18 overall.

"First off I'd like to congratulate Pepperdine head coach Julie Rousseau," said Bulldog head coach Kelly Graves. "I have a lot of respect for her. Pepperdine is the best eighth seed in the history of this conference. They are talented and once they got healthy they were playing their best ball down the stretch.

This game was a grind it out, gut it out game. We're fortunate to go on. Down the stretch we made the key stops and hit our free throws."

Free throws were the key down the stretch for Gonzaga as it hit 9-of-10 to secure the 10-point victory. Sophomore Tiffanie Shives was the player the Zags wanted on the line as she hit 6-of-6 at the charity stripe in the final minute of action.

"Tiffanie is capable of doing that any night," said Graves. "That's been our strength all year. We have old reliable over here (Bowman) and then it's Bjorklund one night, Elliott the next and when we need that other scorer there's always somebody there and tonight it was Tiff. Heather gets double teamed, pushed and shoved and it`s nice to have someone who can make their free throws. Tonight she carried us on her shoulders."

Gonzaga had built a 15-point lead at 53-38 at the 12:23 mark after Shives drained her second three-pointer of the half, but it could not sustain the advantage as Pepperdine used a 14-5 run to close the Zags lead to just five with 7:33 remaining in the contest.

The Waves continued to pressure the Zags and with a little over two minutes remaining Mirana Ayim hit a jumper to cut the Bulldog's lead to just four at 64-60. Two free throws by Bowman and a layup by junior Jami Bjorklund gave Gonzaga some breathing room, but Pepperdine responded with two free throws by Ayim and a steal and layup by Katie Menton to again make it a two possession game.

Once Menton scored the layup to put Gonzaga lead to just 68-64, Gonzaga went into survival mode as its final nine points were hit with time stopped at the charity stripe. Besides Shives six free throws, sophomore Vivian Frieson hit 3-of-4 to help secure the victory.

The Bulldogs took a slight 31-22 lead into halftime on the strength of Bowman and Frieson. Bowman nearly had a double-double after the first stanza as she scored a game-leading nine points and grabbed eight rebounds. Frieson on the other hand scored seven points on 3-of-5 shooting from the field and 1-of-2 accuracy at the charity stripe. Frieson also grabbed four rebounds for Gonzaga.

Besides Bowman, Frieson also finished the game with a double-double; the first of her career. The Seattle native scored 12 points and grabbed a team-leading 11 rebounds.

Two other players had double-figure points for GU as Shives closed out the contest with 16 points, two rebounds and two steals, and freshman Courtney Vandersloot, the WCC Newcomer of the Year, posted 10 points, three rebounds, four assists and one steal.

Daphanie Kennedy paced Pepperdine with 20 points, 15 of which she scored in the second half. Ayim had a double-double performance of 16 points and 12 rebounds.

Gonzaga will be back in action on Saturday, March 8 when it plays in the semi-finals of the WCC Tournament. Game time is slated for 2 p.m. but the Zags opponent has yet to be determined.