Women fall to San Francisco in WCC championship game

LAS VEGAS — Lexi Eaton Rydalch became the West Coast Conference all-time leading scorer as BYU women’s basketball fell to the University of San Francisco, 70-68, Tuesday in the conference tournament championship game.

“I am really proud of my team,” BYU head coach Jeff Judkins said. “This has been a great season. Not everything goes perfect all of the time, but I thought we played well this week. We didn’t execute like we normally do in the last few minutes of this game, and we didn’t do what we needed to do down the stretch. We will hopefully learn from this and realize we have a lot of basketball still ahead of us. We are excited to represent the WCC in the NCAA tournament.”

At the 9:42 mark of the first period, Rydalch passed Hank Gathers with 2,493 points to become the WCC’s all-time leading scorer in both men’s and women’s basketball history. Rydalch finished the game with 23 points, five rebounds, two assists and two steals. She now has 2,513 points in her collegiate career.

Kalani Purcell recorded her 18th double-double of the season in the loss. Purcell finished the contest with 17 points, a game-high 16 rebounds and four assists. Makenzi Morrison Pulsipher added 14 points, going 5 of 9 from the field. Pulsipher also had two rebounds and two assists. Kylie Maeda finished the contest with a game-high seven assists.

The Dons opened the fourth period sinking one of two free throws to cut the Cougar lead to three, 58-55. On the next San Francisco possession, Taylor Proctor tied the game at 58-all with her second 3-point field goal of the contest.

At the 5:47 mark, Purcell hit a baseline jumper to give the Cougars the two-point 62-60 lead. Zhane Dikes then tied the game up again at 62 as she found a lane in the paint.

With 3:27 to go, Amanda Wayment finished a layup on the block to put the Cougars up two, 64-62. On the next Don possession, Proctor missed two free throws. Rydalch capitalized on the misses and converted a jumper in lane to take the four point 66-62 lead.

On the next play, Proctor scored in the lane to put the Dons within two, 66-64. At the 1:35 mark, Rydalch stole the ball in the Dons’ backcourt and got fouled. She went one of two from line, to give BYU the 67-64 lead.

With 1:10 to go, Proctor made a layup in the paint to cut the score to 68-66, still in BYU’s favor. On the next USF possession, Dikes then hit one of two foul shots to pull within one, 68-67. BYU got the ball back and ran deep into the shot clock. Cassie Broadhead got a shot in the lane off, but it got blocked.

Dikes then got fouled again and sank two free throws. With the made foul shots, the Dons took their first lead of the game, 69-68, with 17.2 seconds left.

BYU took a timeout, and out of the time out missed a 3-pointer. Proctor was then fouled in the backcourt, and went to the free throw line with 5.8 seconds left. Proctor missed the second free throw, but the Cougars couldn’t get a shot off before the final buzzer sounded.

Rydalch hit a 3-point field goal on BYU’s opening possession to give the Cougars the 3-0 lead.

Giving BYU the 8-0 lead, Rydalch continued the Cougar run scoring five more consecutive points. On the next Cougar possession, Rydalch found Purcell on the block to convert the easy lay in. With BYU’s 10-0 early lead, San Francisco was forced to take a timeout.

The Dons got on the board at the 6:06 mark to make the score 10-2. BYU extended its lead to 13, 15-2, as Rydalch went one of two from the foul line. Rydalch scored 11 of the Cougar’s first 15 points.

Proctor cut into BYU’s lead, 15-6, as she scored four straight points in the paint. Maeda then put the lead back to double digits, 18-6, as she converted her first 3-pointer of the game. BYU finished the period outscoring the Dons 11 to eight.

At the 7:35 mark, Dikes scored the first points of the second period for either team. With the basket, the Dons cut into BYU’s lead, 26-17. Pulsipher extended the Cougar lead back to 12, 31-19, as she scored five straight points. Pulsipher finished a layup under the basket then got fouled on a 3-pointer and made all three free throws.

Rachel Howard put the Dons within seven, 35-28, as she hit her first 3-point field goal of the contest. Teams traded baskets through the last two minutes of play, and BYU took the 42-37 lead into the half.

Rydalch led all scorers with 16 points at the break, Purcell led both teams with eight rebounds, and Maeda led all players with five first half assists. BYU had 12 assists to San Francisco’s seven, and the Cougars outrebounded the Dons 18 to 16 in the first half.

Purcell opened the half with a layup to extend the Cougar lead to seven, 44-37. Rydalch continued the 4-0 Cougar run with a pair of free throws to give the Cougars the nine-point advantage, 46-37.

Dikes scored four straight to bring the Dons within four, 48-44, the closest score difference since the first few minutes of the first period. With 4:02 to go in the third period, Kayln Simon made a pair of free throws to cut the Cougar lead to two, 51-49.

BYU went on a 4-0 run to take the 55-49 lead. USF cut the lead to one, 55-54, on a layup by Howard on the baseline. On the next play, Broadhead responded with a 3-point field goal at the buzzer to increase the Cougar lead to four, 58-44.

Both teams finished the contest shooting 44 percent from the field. The Cougars finished the game with 18 assists to the Dons’ 11. BYU also outrebounded USF 39 to 33. The Cougars had 11 bench points to the Dons’ two.

The Cougars will look to continue their season in the NCAA tournament. The NCAA will announce its selections and seeding next Monday.

Postgame Notes

Team
BYU started the game with a 10-0 run before USF’s first basket of the game with 6:06 remaining in the first period of action. The Cougars extended their lead to 15 at 26-11 before a 3-pointer from Zhane Dikes cut BYU’s advantage to a 12-point lead, 26-14.

In the first half of play, BYU dished out 12 assists to USF’s seven. The Cougars concluded the game with 18 total assists compared with 11 for the Dons.

BYU took a two-rebound advantage into the locker room with 18 boards. USF had 16. For the game, the Cougars had 39 rebounds while Dons had 33.

In the first half, the Cougars shot 48.5 percent from the field, 31.3 percent from 3-point range and 83.3 percent at the free throw line. They finished the game shooting 43.9 percentage from the field, 30.4 percent from 3 and 73.3 percent from the free-throw line.

Player
At the 9:37 mark Lexi Eaton Rydalch hit a 3 for her first points of the game and became the all-time WCC scoring leader for both men and women, passing the late Hank Gathers. Rydalch led all scorers with 16 points, three rebounds and one assist in the first half. Before fouling out, she picked up her 25th game with 20-plus points, finishing with 23. Rydalch added five rebounds, two assists and two steals in the game.

Kalani Purcell topped the leaderboard in rebounds with eight first half boards while contributing eight points and four assists. With a game-high 16 rebounds and 17 points she picked up her 18th double-double and second in this WCC tournament.

As of Tuesday’s game, Purcell has 407 rebounds for the season, becoming BYU’s all-time leader for rebounds in a single season. She surpassed Jennifer Hamson who had 404 in her final season at BYU in 2013-14.

In the first 20 minutes of action Kylie Maeda dished out five assists for game highs in that category. She finished the contest with a game-high seven assist and tallied three points. Her seven assists tied a season high.

With 14 points, Makenzi Morrison Pulsipher recorded her 22nd and second-straight outing with 10-plus points in a game. She also had two rebounds and two assists.

Rydalch and Purcell were both named the WCC All-Tournament Team.

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