SAN FRANCISCO – The University of San Francisco women's basketball battled, especially in the second half, but the experience and talent of the 20^th ranked team in the nation was too much as Gonzaga came away with a 76-52 victory over the Dons on Saturday at War Memorial at the Sobrato Center.
 
"Overall I was proud of the way we tried to execute a game plan," said head coach Molly Goodenbour. "I thought in both the Portland and Gonzaga games we made great strides in our competitiveness, our intensity, our understanding of the effort and intent it takes to compete in conference play.  Hopefully that bodes well as we finish the last two games of the first round and enter the second round of conference play."
 
USF (5-8, 1-6 WCC) finished with three players in double figures led by Lucie Hoskova's team-high 14 points.  She was joined by Kia Vaalavirta and Marta Galic who had strong performances off the bench, finishing with 12 each. The 12 points for Vaalavirta was a season-high.
 
Gonzaga (12-2, 7-0 WCC) wins their 11^th straight game thanks to the play of guard Kayleigh Truong who had a game-high 17 points.  She was joined in double figures by Yvonne Ejim who had 10 -eight coming in the second half.
 
The Dons did a tremendous job of keeping Gonzaga's top three scorers in check, holding Jill Townsend, and Jenn and LeeAnne Wirth well below their scoring averages.  The trio average 35.6 points per game and were held to 21 points today with none scoring more than nine. 
 
"Gonzaga is a really strong, experienced team. They are the benchmark for the WCC and have been for a lot of years," said Goodenbour. "That's what we told our team when we went into this game, we wanted to come out and try to take away their best three players in the Wirth twins and Jill Townsend and I thought we actually did a really good job of executing that.  None of them scored more than 10 points.  They had other kids step up because they are that talented and deep and that's what good teams do."
 
The Bulldogs opened the contest jumping out to a 7-0 run before the Dons got on the board thanks to a pair of free throws from Hoskova. USF equaled the Bulldogs from the field in the opening quarter except for one category – 3-point field goals.  USF was 0-for-4 and the Bulldogs were 2-for-4. 
 
That disparity continued into the second quarter as Gonzaga pulled away. USF was 0-for-7 for the half and the Bulldogs were 3-for-7 from deep.  Gonzaga also outrebounded the Dons 19-13 in the opening half and finished with 24 points in the paint.
 
The trio of Hoskova, Ioanna Krimili and Abby Rathbun accounted for 17 of USF's 19 first half points.  With Hoskova leading the Dons with nine.  USF finished the half 8-for-26 from the floor and turned it over nine times.  Gonzaga went into the intermission with a 38-19. Rathbun finished with eight points and four rebounds on the day. Krimili was held to single digits for the first time all season with six points.
 
The third quarter was USF's strongest of the afternoon.  The Dons outscore the Bulldogs 18-17 in the period thanks in part to the play by Vaalavirta who had six points off transition buckets.
 
The Dons shot 46.2 percent from the field in the third quarter and finished the half shooting north of 40.0 percent.  For the game USF shot 37.5 percent from the floor going 20-for-54.  Gonzaga responded by shooting 55.2 percent from the floor going 32-for-58.
 
Next up for USF, a trip to Santa Clara were the Dons will take on the Broncos on Saturday, January 23 at 7:00 p.m. That game will be streamed on the WCC Network with George Devine on the call.