SAN FRANCISCO — Abby Rathbun didn't quite know what to do. She looked around for someone — anyone — to hug.
 
As officials reviewed Rathbun's improbable game-winning put-back of a Mikayla Williams miss, she found head coach Molly Goodenbour, and wrapped her arms around her neck.
 
As Rathbun gave her postgame radio interview, she teared up. The 60-58 win over BYU — the No. 3 team in the conference — not only avenged a 13-point loss a month ago in Provo, but put an appropriate capper on Senior Day. At the tail end of a trying a season where the Dons have been short-handed and discounted, they could finally celebrate.
 
"We've been in that locker room and been real close a lot of times and today we kind of got over the hump," said head coach Molly Goodenbour.
 
Down to just seven available players due to a combination of injury and illness, the Dons (10-18, 3-13 in WCC) have played well for stretches throughout the season, but have had trouble finishing. That was no more painful than earlier this week against the West Coast Conference's No. 2 team, San Diego, when a Kia Vaalavirta last-second jumper fell short in a 61-58 loss.
 
On Saturday, out of the final time out, Goodenbour drew up a play for the graduate transfer and former Division II All-American Williams to come off false action and a back screen, but 6-foot-7 Sara Hamson switched and stood in her way. Williams got the ball up, but Hamson tipped it.
 
"We're all sticking to the story that it was a pass," Williams said. "I was so happy when Abigail got that one. I really tried to go in against the girl I know is going to body and be physical, the shot goes up, I know it's over, and then we'll have overtime, but then Abby was right there, shooting a shot she's always got in her bag."
 
Rathbun went up and in one motion, pushed the ball off the glass and into the basket as the buzzer sounded, a shot she's practiced hundreds of times after practice. That touched off a cathartic celebration around the three seniors — Williams, Dolapo Balogun and Rojeen Sharifi — that continued into the locker room.
 
"Those three seniors mean the world to me," Rathbun said. "They didn't have to choose USF, but they chose USF and they wanted to make us better."
 
Appropriately enough, San Francisco got versatile performances from players who have been asked to expand their games in a season marked by a severely depleted bench, where the Dons have more often than not had to play with five forwards on the floor.
 
With only six players seeing floor time on Saturday, rebounding ace Leilah Vigil went 3 for 4 from beyond the arc to power her 12th double-double this season (a game-high 18 points and 14 rebounds).
 
Williams, a forward by trade, had 11 points and five rebounds, but also dished out a team-high four assists.
 
Graduate transfer Balogun chipped in with a 3-pointer, one of eight San Francisco poured in.
 
"We're a totally different team than before Christmas," said Goodenbour, who lost, among others, promising freshman guard Ioanna Krimili. "It really took us that first half of conference play to figure out, 'Alright, how are we going to play? How are we going to coach these guys? What positions can we put them in to help them be successful to help our team be successful?' To their tremendous credit and maturity, our players have adjusted and adapted and grown into roles."
 
Playing a lineup of mostly forwards plus natural three-guard Kia Vaalavirta at the point, the Dons have given the conferences' best teams trouble, but early on Saturday looked like they would have trouble containing guard Breanna Drollinger.
 
Drollinger — a career 32.6% 3-point shooter who scored just eight points in the 57-44 win over the Dons in Provo on Jan. 23 — went off for 25 on Saturday, striping 5 of 9 from beyond the 3-point arc and 10-of-21 from the floor, playing all 40 minutes.
 
Outside of Drollinger, though, BYU couldn't get much else going. The rest of the team shot just 13 for 36. San Francisco capitalized on 15 turnovers, scoring 12 points, and got 13 second-chance points off of 20 offensive rebounds, led by six from Rathbun and four apiece from Vigil and Williams.
 
After trailing 18-14 in the first, and by as many as eight early in the second, the Dons went on a 9-0 run to take a 30-24 lead with under two minutes to go before the half. After Drollinger hit a pair of back-to-back threes to knot things up — including one from NBA distance — Balogun hit a jumper from the right wing. In her entire career at Southeast Missouri State, she'd never taken a 3-pointer. She's now taken 72 (and hit 22).
 
In the second half, Vaalavirta (who finished with 10 points) clamped down on Drollinger, and she only scored six points after the break, getting run off the line and forced inside. Without Drollinger's onslaught, San Francisco was able to keep pace, outscoring the Cougars 18-12 in the third quarter.
 
"Despite our record, they have been one of the most enjoyable teams I've ever coached," said Goodenbour. "They just bring everything they have every day."
 
The Dons' offense had trouble moving the ball at times, and shot just 27.8% in the third quarter, but pulled down eight offensive rebounds in the period while giving the Cougars (16-10, 11-5) only three second-chance opportunities. BYU, though, mounted a comeback. The Cougars went on a 12-3 run at the start of the fourth as San Francisco went without a field goal for the first three minutes.
 
"They started to pressure up a little bit more," Williams said. "We didn't want to turn it away or anything but we just got it out of our heads and said 'Hey, we want to win this. We're going to have to get up good shots each time.'"
 
Vigil then halted a 9-1 BYU run with her second 3-pointer, banking it in from the top of the arc to give San Francisco a 58-56 lead with 58 seconds to go.
 
After Drollinger's final bucket of the night to tie things up, the Dons and Cougars traded fouls, but the most crucial was one that wasn't called. Balogun, defending Drollinger at mid-court, unnerved the BYU guard enough that she lost the handle on the ball after trying to cross Balogun over.
 
A block, a Vigil offensive rebound and a held ball set up the final 30-second time out by the Dons with just 1.8 seconds remaining.
 
"The game breaks in different ways," Goodenbour said. "It broke our way today, and there've certainly been days and nights where it hasn't broken for us."
 
Said Rathbun: "It's not been easy all season, with the low numbers, and we were upset about the last game not going in our favor. We wanted it more tonight."