SAN FRANCISCO – The San Francisco women's basketball team put together a dominating overall performance against Sonoma State, taking down the Seawolves 83-42 Saturday afternoon, as part of a men's and women's basketball twin bill at War Memorial Gym.

USF's balanced offense saw five women hit the double-figure scoring mark, led by Michaela Rakova. Playing in her first collegiate game, the freshman form Ivanka pri Dunaji, Slovakia, compiled 13 points and 11 rebounds in 18 minutes of action.

"I thought Michaela did an outstanding job, and she just gives us a good post presence," said head coach Jennifer Azzi.  It was great to be able to play everyone tonight and get really good game experience for our freshmen. To get everyone minutes is going to be important moving forward as we move through the season because the season it long and we're going to need everybody."

Along with Rakova's double-double, four other women scored at least 10 points in the game. Sophomore Rachel Howard finished with 12, and the trio of Zhane Dikes, Taj Winston and Claudia Price each added 10.

The Dons and Seawolves opened the game toe-to-toe, with the visitors holding a three point lead after Molly Kommer's 3-pointer sailed through the twine with 13:17 to play in the first half and the score at 13-10. That would prove to be Sonoma State's last bucket from the floor for a seven minute stretch as the Dons opened the throttle with a 20-2 run to break open the game. During the span, Sonoma State committed six turnovers and went 0-for-9 as USF got points from nearly every position on the floor. When the Seawolves scored their next basket, the score was 30-17 in favor of the home team with 6:06 to play in the period.

"Certainly we have a lot we still need to work on, but I thought our defensive pressure and defensive effort was good in spurts," noted Azzi. "I think Taj has really come along defensively for us, and with her leadership as a senior that means a lot."

Taking a 46-28 halftime lead into the locker room, USF surged at the start of the second, scoring 12 unanswered, capped by a putback from Winston. The Dons were able to play everyone available, rotating in 13 players. Twelve women scored at least one point, and all but one pulled down at least one rebound on the night.

"We talked a lot about rebounding," explained Azzi. " We need to outrebound our opponents if we want to be successful this season, so it's definitely an area that we've talked a lot about and we've focused and worked on, and I thought our players did a lot better job tonight."

As a team, USF outrebounded the Seawolves 56 to 28, and the Dons pulled down 23 offensive rebounds that led to 24 second-chance points. The Dons scored 52 points in the paint, and shot 45.7 percent from the floor, while holding Sonoma State to 26.3 percent shooting. Helped by the defensive pressure that was evident throughout the contest, the Dons forced 19 turnovers that led to 22 points. Also notable on the stats sheet, the Dons finished the game with its highest assist total since playing at Pepperdine Jan. 4, 2014, led by four assists from Taylor Proctor.

"We had 17 assists tonight and 13 turnovers so that definitely leads to a much better style and flow to the game," said Azzi. "I also like that the game didn't stop as much and there weren't many foul calls. I think it's been an adjustment to the new rules and the way that things are called, but I thought tonight was a more clean game and I think that makes for good basketball."

The Dons open the season with a 2-0 record for the second time in head coach Jennifer Azzi's time on the Hilltop, while NCAA Division II Sonoma State moves to 0-2 on the year.

All the preseason has been structured in a way to get us ready for conference, so I think Tuesday is going to be another good game for us and we look forward to that.

Next out, USF welcomes Cal State Monterey Bay to War Memorial Gym Tuesday at 7 p.m. The first 500 fans at the contest will receive 2014-15 schedule magnets.