Women’s basketball team protects home court The women’s basketball team continue their strong confernce play in wins over St. Mary’s and San Francisco

By Edwin Blebu
ASST. SPORTS EDITOR

The USD women’s basketball team claimed victory against the St. Mary’s College Gaels on Feb. 21 night as they rallied in the second half to defeat the Gaels 67-50. Junior guard Amy Kame was the leading scorer with 21 points. All of Kame’s points were scored in the second half as the Toreros made a strong push to seal the game in front of their home crowd.

Freshman guard Maya Hood was the second leading scorer adding 14 points and senior forward Felicia Wijenberg recorded a team-high 12 rebounds.

After getting off to a relatively slow start in the first half and shooting only 30 percent from the field, the Toreros found themselves down by only one point going into halftime.
USD began the second half determined to establish the tempo and put an extreme amount of defensive pressure on the Gaels.

Kame scored her first basket of the game within the first two minutes of the second half, sparking a 15-4 Torero run. The Gaels would not lead for the rest of the game as the Torero’s lead increased to as much as 22 points before ending the game 67-50.

In a post game interview Kame spoke about what changes the team made at the break.

“At halftime we were just really frustrated with ourselves and we knew we needed to come out strong and just let our defense create easy offense for us and that’s something that we did,” Kame Said. “The team just played so hard in the second half and we let our defense take over from there.”

In their next game on Feb. 23, the Toreros were able to celebrate the last career home game for senior guard Julia Bennett and senior forward Klara Wischer with a win against the University of San Francisco Dons 62-52.

Sophomore forward Katelyn McDaniel led all scorers with 19 points, missing only two shots over the course of the game. Hood scored 14 points, grabbed eight rebounds and added six steals for the Toreros.
The Toreros began the game trailing the dons Dons until about the seven minute mark where they were able to capture a two-point lead. With some help from McDaniel’s 11-point first half performance the Toreros took a 31-22 lead going into halftime.

The Toreros kept the momentum going into the second half as the Dons never led for the rest of the game. The Don’s leading scorer was senior guard Mel Khlok who tallied 14 points and seven rebounds.
This game proved to be pivotal for the Toreros as they moved into second place in the West Coast Conference. Based on the team’s current seeding, they will have a first round bye when the WCC Tournament begins March 6 in Las Vegas.

As the second seed in the tournament, the Toreros would play their first tournament game in the semifinals on Saturday March 9. The Toreros will play their last regular season conference game at the University of Santa Clara Broncos on Saturday March 2.