Jan. 27, 2011

Box Score

SAN DIEGO, Calif. - Senior guard Sam Child scored a team-high 22 points, and junior guard Dominique Conners added in 13, but it wasn't enough as the University of San Diego women's basketball team (11-8, 1-5 WCC) dropped a 65-60 decision to the University of Portland (12-9, 3-3 WCC) Thursday evening in a West Coast Conference game at the Jenny Craig Pavilion.

Child scored her 22 points on 9-for-19 shooting form the field, while also pulling down five rebounds and dishing out three assists. With her 22 points, Child has now moved into seventh all-time in career-points at USD. Conners scored her 13 points on 5-for-14 shooting from the field, and she moved to within two points of cracking the top-10 all-time scoring leaders at USD. As a team, USD shot .387 from the field and out rebounded the Pilots 42-31.

In the first half, San Diego came out on fire as they grabbed the first five points of the game on a Morgan Woodrow 3-pointer and a Nya Mason jumper from the free throw line to give USD the early momentum. The Pilots then found themselves back on even terms with USD at 11-11 with 13:54 to go, and the two teams then began to trade basket-for-basket over the next several minutes. The Pilots would then go on to build up their lead to as many as seven at 26-19 with 6:25 to go, and Portland would manage to maintain a five-point edge over the next several possessions. Then with the Pilots leading 31-26, a Child 3-pointer ignited a 5-0 San Diego run to pull USD to within one at 31-30 with 1:32 to play. The Pilots then hit a 3-pointer with 45 seconds left to go into the break up 34-30.

In the second half, the Toreros came out hitting on all cylinders as they quickly tied the game up at 34 on a Conners jumper with 18:58 to go. The two teams then traded basket-for-basket again over the next several minutes with each team having its turn with the lead. Then with the score all knotted at 41, a Child jumper jumpstarted a 9-3 Toreros run that gave San Diego its biggest lead of the game at 50-44 with 11:32 to go and all the momentum was on USD's side. The Pilots however, slowly began to chip away at the lead and tied things up at 50 on a Tara Cronin lay-up with 8:35 to go. The Toreros would tie the score one more time at 54-all on a Woodrow-jumper with 3:22 to go, but the Pilots would quickly push its advantage back to six-points, and maintained that margin until settling for the five-point win.

The Toreros will return to action on Saturday as they host league-leading Gonzaga University in a 2 p.m. WCC game inside the Jenny Craig Pavilion.