University of San Francisco Athletics

Box Score
LOS ANGELES  – Propelled by a Long Beach, Calif., native Taj Winston's 19 points, the San Francisco women's basketball picked up its first win in West Coast Conference action, downing Loyola Marymount 80-76 at Gersten Pavilion Thursday night.

With the victory, USF improves to 6-7 on the season and 1-1 in WCC play, while the Lions fall to 3-11 and remain winless in league games.

Winston, whose family is a short 30-mile drive, gave her cheering section a show. Along with her team-high 19 points, she added five rebounds and three steals for the Dons.

The thing that I appreciate about Taj is her effort," said head coach Jennifer Azzi. "Her effort was there tonight, and when her effort is there it affects our team in a huge way. She's had good practices lately and we talk about that all the time – everything starts at practice. Her mindset has been right, she's been great on the boards and her decision-making has been very good. I'm excited for her, especially to be down here."

Fellow junior Aundrea Gordon added 12 points in her first start of the season. Zhane Dikes went for 16 points, including an 8-of-11 effort from the free throw line and a team-high four assists, and Taylor Proctor leapt for a game-high 12 rebounds to go with her nine points. Freshman Rachel Howard registered 10 points and three blocks in the winning effort.

"It felt like a step of maturity for our team because we are so young to not let the swing of the game get to us," noted Azzi. "I felt like they were confident in their ability to execute and take care of the ball at the end and do our best to use the shot clock. When we have a balanced attack like we did tonight, I think we're pretty hard to stop."

The Dons were first to score, with junior Jamie Katuna forcing a Loyola Marymount turnover and running for the fast break layup, assisted by Winston. But the Lions were quick to take control of the contest in the opening minutes. Loyola Marymount was hot from the field to start the game, hitting 64.3 percent of its attempts through the first six minutes of the game. The Lions built a 21-10 advantage with 14:03 to play in the first as Hazel Ramirez' jumper went through the net.

The Dons settled down and began to whittle away at Loyola Marymount's lead, cutting the advantage to three points when Aundrea Gordon's shot made the score 29-26 in favor of the home team.  

Holding the Lions without a basket for the final three minutes of the period, USF earned its first lead of the night with less than a minute remaining in the half. Winston tied the game at 36-36 after converting both ends of her trip to the line with 57.0 seconds to play in the period. USF took its first lead in the game after Winston cut to the basket after an inbounds opportunity with 22.3 seconds to play in the half, capping a 12-2 run heading into the halftime break.

"It was huge for us to get the lead heading into halftime because I think momentum is everything," said Azzi. "I was proud of our team for not getting down when we were down. We didn't have a great start to the game, so to be able to have the composure to pull out of that was great. I think we executed and played pretty well offensively, and defensively I thought we did a better job in that stretch getting stops."

The Dons continued the momentum built to close the first half with a 7-2 start in the second. Five points by Proctor was followed by a dish from the sophomore from Colorado Springs, Colo., to Winston for a layup. USF owned a 45-38 lead with 16:44 to play, and grew the advantage to 12 points after Dikes shook off an LMU defender and drove the baseline for the basket with 9:03 remaining.

The Lions battled to cut the lead to five points after Emily Ben-Jumbo went up for an offensive rebound and layup to put the score at 64-59 with 5:58 on the clock. But Loyola Marymount could not reduce the deficit any further after Claudia Price powered in a putback to give the Dons the eight-point lead with less than four minutes to play.

The Lions chose to put the Dons on the line for 14 free throw attempts in the final 1:34 of the contest, but USF responded to hit an effective 85.7 percent from the stripe to keep Loyola Marymount at bay and earn the 80-76 victory.

USF was outshot and outrebounded by the Lions in the contest, but the Dons earned 44 trips to the line to account for 33 points in the tight contest.

"It feels really good to play in front of all of my family and all of my friends," said Winston. "To come out to LA and take care of business in the first game is really good for us leading into Pepperdine."

Getting two wins in a row is something that the coaches have been emphasizing all season, just being consistent, having that mental focus," added Gordon. "Pepperdine on Saturday will be a really good test for us to come out here and put two good games together back-to-back."

USF travels to Firestone Fieldhouse for a showdown with the Waves Saturday at 2 p.m.