Gonzaga women lean on bench points, hot shooting in rout of San Francisco
Capitalizing off of a hot shooting night and an outsized contribution from its bench, Gonzaga women’s basketball topped San Francisco 76-52 in a West Coast Conference game Saturday in San Francisco.
Kayleigh Truong scored 17 points and had five assists to lead a balanced outing that saw 10 Zags score at least four points.
Yvonne Ejim shined off the bench, scoring 10 points on 5-for-5 shooting from the floor. Jill Townsend added eight points and a game-high seven rebounds, leaving her just eight shy of 1,000 career points at GU.
GU shot 44% from beyond the arc and 55% overall en route to its 11th straight win. The Zags forced 11 USF turnovers that led to 12 points and held the Dons to 37% shooting.
“That was a great way to end the road trip,” GU coach Lisa Fortier said. “We came out ready to play and matched the intensity of a team who plays extremely hard. We had a great pace in transition and battled through the physicality to shoot a really good percentage.”
The 20th-ranked Zags improved to 12-2 overall and 7-0 in WCC play, but they’ll have to wait a week for their next opponent. After the cancellation of Thursday’s date with San Diego due to COVID, they’re set to host BYU in the McCarthey Athletic Center on Saturday.
Timely first-half runs kept the game increasingly out of USF’s reach.
The Truong twins were the catalysts more often than not. Late in the first half, back-to-back jumpers from Kaylynne Truong stretched the GU lead to 11. A 9-0 run in the second quarter – punctuated by a Kayleigh Truong steal and layup on the other end – brought the Zags’ lead past 20 just before halftime.
About one-third of San Francisco’s offense on average comes from long range, but the Dons missed all seven of their 3-point attempts in the first half.
USF trim the Zags’ lead to 14 with a third-quarter run, but minutes later, GU boosted the edge again to 20 on a 3-pointer from Cierra Walker.
The Zags led by as many as 28 points in the fourth quarter as USF came away from possessions empty-handed.
Fortier cleared her bench soon after. GU’s reserves, led by Louise Forsythe, closed out the game on a 7-0 run.