Santa Clara snaps Gonzaga women's five-game win streak 77-73

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Jan. 4—The Gonzaga women's basketball team struggled to find consistent offensive flow Sunday afternoon.

Trumping the offensive difficulties, though, was poor defense.

The Zags played from behind seemingly the whole game, but still had a chance to win before the Santa Clara Broncos held on, 77-73, at the Leavey Center in Santa Clara, California.

The Bulldogs' five-game winning streak was snapped. Gonzaga moved to 11-6 overall, 3-1 in WCC.

"It was an unfortunate missed opportunity," Gonzaga coach Lisa Fortier said.

The Zags couldn't overcome stretches of inconsistent defense.

"The biggest challenge for us is the fact we couldn't stop them defensively," Fortier said. "We continually had defensive breakdowns. A lack of communication within our team. I'm pushing them to find their voice and talk more on defense and have a little more impassioned effort on the defensive side. We're a very talented offensive team, but we have to guard and we have to get stops."

Gonzaga led briefly 5-0, but, interestingly, the Zags wouldn't lead again after Santa Clara took the lead at 9-7.

The Bulldogs had many obstacles. The ir seasonlong liability — turnovers — proved costly again, and then sophomore point guard Allie Turner had to go to the bench with four fouls with 3 minutes, 28 seconds to go in the third quarter.

Turner didn't return to the game until the 6:49 mark of the fourth. Interestingly, Gonzaga, which found itself in a 10-point hole late in the third, fought back with Turner watching from the sideline.

Redshirt freshman forward Lauren Whittaker did her best to will the Zags across the finish line. She scored a driving basket and moments later made two free throws to pull Gonzaga within 66-64 with 5:09 to play.

Gonzaga trailed 69-66 when Whittaker took a nice feed from sophomore transfer Teryn Gardner. Whittaker made the basket as she was fouled, giving the Zags a chance to pull even. But she missed the free throw with 3:40 to go.

Junior transfer Zeryhia Aokuso drove full court, making a difficult driving basket while being fouled. She completed the three-point play, pulling Gonzaga within one again, 72-71, with 1:50 remaining.

Gonzaga wouldn't score again until Aokuso got a putback with eight seconds to go.

The Zags had to foul, and Santa Clara's Mia Jones missed both free throws with 6.4 seconds left on the clock. But Gonzaga couldn't get the rebound.

"They're one of the best 3-point shooting teams in the country by makes per game and they shot 33 of them," Fortier said. "That was not part of the game plan. It wasn't supposed to be that they got that many up in the first place. Not so much concerned with the 11 that they made but the fact that they shot 33 of them."

Gonzaga finished with 20 turnovers, 13 in the first half. Four of those miscues in the first two quarters came on shot clock violations.

A snapshot of consistency, at least for Santa Clara, was graduate point guard Ashley Hawkins, who had 11 assists and no turnovers.

Whittaker had her eighth double-double with 21 points and 13 rebounds. Aokuso had 15 points and seven rebounds and Turner added 13 points, five rebounds and three assists.

The outcome could prove pivotal in postseason seeding. Santa Clara (13-4, 3-1) and Gonzaga play just once in the WCC's new unbalanced schedule.

The Zags return home for three straight games, beginning Saturday against Portland.

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