Gonzaga women open season with 81-66 win over North Dakota State
In a foul-plagued, disjointed game, the Gonzaga women’s basketball team managed to piece together more than enough offense .
The Bulldogs showed in their opener Friday they will light up the scoreboard this season, topping the North Dakota State Bison 81-66 before 1,906 at Scheels Center in Fargo, North Dakota.
An 11-0 run in the second quarter sparked the Zags, and it allowed Gonzaga to start pulling away.
“It was a great first game,” said Gonzaga coach Lisa Fortier, whose record is 10-2 in season openers. “Most teams have played a game and just the way our schedule worked out this was our first one so there were a little bit of nerves and the first time we were in front of a crowd who weren’t for us.”
The Zags held the Bison scoreless for 8 minutes , 27 seconds in the second before NDSU scored as the horn sounded for halftime. Gonzaga went into intermission ahead 34-26.
Gonzaga used a 13-4 outburst to start the second half to build a 47-30 lead. By quarter’s end, the Bulldogs led 60-38.
The Zags’ biggest lead came at 71-48.
The Bison, picked to finish second in the Summit League, put together their first sustained offensive spurt, using a 10-0 run to pull within 73-61 with less than three minutes to go.
But the Zags hit the reset button, finishing off a solid opener on the road.
“We started out a little slow defensively,” Fortier said. “We did a pretty good job in the middle quarters. In the last quarter we didn’t defend their tendencies as well.”
Ten of 11 Zags who played scored. Leading the way was sophomore guard Allie Turner, who had 18 points including 4 of 5 from 3-point range. Saint Mary’s transfer Zeryhia Aokuso had 14 points, redshirt freshman forward Lauren Whittaker had 13 and nine rebounds in 18 minutes, and senior guard Ines Bettencourt had 12 points, four assists and four rebounds.
It was a homecoming for Gonzaga freshman forward Jaiden Haile, who was a standout at West Fargo Horace High School in Fargo. She had four points, six rebounds and two assists in 14 minutes.
“We did a good job of executing through a lot of pressure, but we were still able to get some open looks and we stayed patient offensively,” Fortier said.
The Bison (1-1) were led by 6-foot-3 forward Avery Koenen. She had 17 points, 14 coming in the first half. The Zags clamped down on her in the final 20 minutes.
The Zags complete the season-opening, two-game road trip Sunday morning at Toledo.
Tipoff is at 11:30.