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SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS – The San Francisco women's basketball came to San Antonio to “mess with Texas” and they did just that by posting a 61-60 overtime win over Texas-San Antonio on Sunday afternoon at the Convocation Center. With the win, the Dons move to 4-3 on the season and pick up their first road win while the Roadrunners fall to 5-3 with their first home loss of the year.
Freshman
Taylor Proctor started the game scoring for the Dons with a 5-0 run of her own. She finished regulation with two clutch free throws with 1.4 seconds on the clock to tie the game at 53-53 and send it to overtime. And Proctor rounded out the day with a buzzer-beating jumper from the right wing to notch the 61-60 victory over UTSA and pick up a slew of firsts in her short USF career.
“It feels pretty good!” Proctor said with a laugh describing her first buzzer-beater. She finished the game with career highs of 21 points and 14 rebounds in 44 minutes of action to earn her first double-double in a Dons uniform.
The overtime period started with a layup by Jenny Menz that was answered by
Aundrea Gordon's attempt two minutes later. Proctor put the Dons up with a jumper in the paint with 1:27 to play in the extra period and grew the USF lead to three when
Mel Khlok dropped in a pair from the line with 1:04 remaining.
UTSA's Simone Young added two in her trip to the free throw line with less than a minute remaining and then put the Roadrunners up after a drive in the lane resulted in the bucket with 12.4 seconds on the clock. With no timeouts remaining, the Dons raced across the court and Gordon found Proctor on the right wing where the freshman dropped in the game-winner as time expired.
“We wanted to get off a good shot so we were running stuff out of our motion offense,” coach
Jennifer Azzi said of the final play. “The fact that Aundrea was able to find Taylor at that last second and that Taylor was able to make that shot, it was huge.”
But to get to the overtime period, the Dons had to overcome a seven-point Roadrunner lead with five minutes to play in regulation. USF finished out on a 6-1 clip despite shooting 24.1 percent in the second half that included a 3-for-20 scoring drought that spanned more than 12 minutes.
And then there was a clutch trip to the line for Proctor. With 1.4 seconds to play in regulation, the freshman from Colorado Springs, Colo., found herself at the line with USF down by two points. Both free throws swished through the net to send the game to a third period.
“My team was working for me and I want to work hard for them,” Proctor said. “Everything that was going through my head was like, 'Calm down, make your free throws, we'll get it back in overtime, we'll play a lot better in overtime.' And that's what we did.”
Proctor wasn't alone in contributing to the USF stat sheet, as she was supported by Khlok's 19 points, seven rebounds and six steals.
Taj Winston added a 10-point, 10-rebound double-double for the Dons, the first of her career.
“I was really proud of the way our team played,” Azzi said. “Even though we had a lot of scoring from Taylor and Mel, it was a real team win for us. After our 34 turnover game at Sac State it was great that they could turn it around and come back and play so well together. And it's nice to know that on a night that we were really off from the 3-point line, that we can get point production other places.”
The Dons were 16-of-22 from the line, including 11-of-12 in the first half as Denae Mary Williams was a perfect 4-for-4 in her two trips to the stripe. Teamwork was also evident with seven USF players notching at least one assist. The Dons came away with the 45-40 overall rebounding edge with a 13-7 advantage on the offensive glass. A reward for their hard work, USF outscored the Roadrunners 12-2 in second chance points.
The Dons have a short turnaround time as the team hits the road Wednesday for a 5 p.m. contest at Cal State- Northridge.
“Northridge is a very good team,” Azzi said. “Obviously we'd love to celebrate a road win. I think it's exciting now to go and try and do it again.”
