Gonzaga WBB Staves Off Comeback Attempt From UC Davis to Capture Third Consecutive Win
Little by little, Gonzaga women’s basketball (6-4) seems to be finding its footing as a team. After winning its third straight game over UC Davis 83-72 on Saturday night, the Zags head into an extended break between games on the back of one of their best showings of the season to this point. Even when the Aggies stormed back into the game in the third quarter, GU held strong down the stretch to seal the victory on its home court.
The Bulldogs rode a clean and explosive first half of basketball to stay in the win column, as the first 20 minutes of action couldn’t have gone smoother.
“It was the best half we had,” head coach Lisa Fortier said postgame. “I don't think that we've played out of our mind, but we showed what we're capable of, and we've shown that at different times so far this season, obviously not as well as this, but we had glimpses of that…different times in different ways…So we're still working to put it all together.”
In those two initial periods, everything was working for Gonzaga. Redshirt freshman Lauren Whittaker continued to roll in her first season at the college level, racking up 10 points in the first five minutes of the contest, including draining a couple of threes and getting a fast break layup off her own steal. She would go on to finish with 19 points on 8-of-9 shooting with five boards, falling a point shy of tallying her fifth straight game scoring at least 20.
With the way the first 10 games have unfolded for the Bulldogs, it feels like Whittaker will be at the center of opposing scouting reports going forward, even with her inexperience. She has a lot on her plate, and Fortier says the New Zealand native is handling it well so far.
“(Whittaker) did another good job. I think she's being pretty consistent; she's capable of all of it. She's just young, you know,” Fortier said.
As a unit, the Zags moved on the ball on the perimeter with precision and pace that led to great looks from the outside. They shot 5-for-6 from deep in the first quarter after coming into the game averaging 6.4 made three-pointers a game. Whittaker, Inês Bettencourt, Allie Turner, Teryn Gardner, and Zeryhia Aokuso all connected on multiple triples.
Defensively, they pressed and trapped the Aggies in the early going, which created turnovers and led to high percentage buckets in transition. That high level of play sparked a 13-0 run and a 28-9 lead after a quarter. By halftime, GU was still more than doubling up UC Davis by a score of 53-24.
But the Aggies outscored the Zags 30-16 in the third, backed by UC Davis’ three-headed scoring monster of Avery Sussex, Nya Epps, and Ryann Bennett. The trio combined for 64 of the team’s 72 points, with Sussex and Epps each contributing 23, and the former dropping 15 in that third period with perfect efficiency. In Fortier’s assessment, her squad didn’t respond well when the opposing team’s shots began to fall, and didn’t have the memories of goldfish in those moments.
This stretch for the Aggies trickled into the fourth quarter, where they eventually cut the lead to as small as seven. But GU resisted the valiant comeback effort, primarily with the effort and energy provided by Bettencourt, one of two seniors on the roster, who scored eight of her 16 points in the final period, as well as pulling down three rebounds and even blocking a layup attempt by Epps.
Bettencourt brings the highest competitive spirit to the Zags, according to Fortier, and her attitude of never backing down allows her to play at her best.
“She's our most competitive player. She wants to compete with people. She gets fired up,” Fortier said. “…She went head-to-head with the best guard every game we've played so far…She rises to those kind of moments, and she loves them.”
She was one of four Bulldog starters to score in double figures, with forward Taylor Smith just missing out in her eight-point, six-rebound performance. But Bettencourt’s ability to put the ball in the basket comes secondary concerning her impact on her team. As one of the oldest players on the roster, the Portuguese guard says she’s happy to play whatever role is necessary to get GU a win.
“Exactly what I think I should be doing for this team is filling in the spots that needs to be filled in, you know, taking the charges, getting defensive stops, getting our team to start going on offense,” Bettencourt said. “And sometimes it's going to show in the scoreboard, sometimes it's not, and that's exactly the player that I want to be.”
The Zags also had their third-fewest turnover game with 16, after turning it over 22 times in their slim win over GCU. And after shooting a season-high 54 percent from the field, Gonzaga has a solid foundation to build on going into a week-and-a-half stretch off before facing a 10-0 Arizona State team at the McCarthey Athletic Center on December 16.
“We've had a gauntlet, and the way our games have been…you don't really get a day off in between, and it's kind of long weeks,” Fortier said. “So (the players) have finals this week…We'll give them a couple extra days off, do some shooting, take some time to work on some of the areas that we need to be strong for just us, not necessarily specific to…whoever we have coming up…So they're going to take some time to study, rest, recover, and then get ready to go.”
