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SAN FRANCISCO – The USF women's basketball team came out of the gate slow and wasn't able to build up the necessary momentum as they suffered a 78-58 loss to UC Davis on Wednesday afternoon at War Memorial at the Sobrato Center.
Senior
Rachel Howard led USF (6-5) with 14 points and six rebounds, while junior
Anna Seilund added 12 points on a night that saw the Dons connect at a 34.7 percent clip, their third-lowest output of the year.
It wasn't just USF that got off to slow start as UC Davis shot 35.7 percent in the first quarter. The score was just 7-4 in favor of UC Davis at the first media timeout, but the Dons would end up leading 15-13 at the end of the first frame.
UC Davis (8-3) started to heat up in the second quarter as Dani Nafekh's three-pointer with 6:18 in the quarter kickstarted a 10-0 Aggie run that put Davis up 27-19. Howard hit a jumper and layup within the final minute of the half to help cut the Aggies' lead to 31-29 heading into the intermission.
UC Davis kept the momentum in its favor, stretching its lead to 10 on a jumper with 26 seconds left in the third quarter from Morgan Bertsch, who scored eight of her game-high 27 points in the third quarter.
The Dons were unable to dig themselves out of a hole after UC Davis scored the first 10 points of the fourth quarter to open up a 66-44 lead that they extended to a game-high 25 on Sophia Song's three-pointer with just over two minutes remaining.
USF was perfect from the free throw line, but was offered only four attempts.
Freshman
Anna Pierce registered a season-high eight points for the Dons, while connecting for two of USF's four 3-pointers on the day.
Sophia Song tallied 13 points and Nina Bessolo had 11 points and 12 rebounds as the other Aggies in double figures.
The Dons enjoy a week off before traveling to San Diego to open West Coast Conference play at 6 p.m. on Dec. 29. They will follow that up by returning home to host Santa Clara at 2 p.m. on Dec. 31.
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