Gonzaga Women Secure Revenge Against Washington State

a prominent victory keeps the party going

Hours before the Gonzaga Men would host the Washington State Men, the inverse was taking place down in Pullman with the Spokane gang traveling down US-195 catching some wonderful views of the snowy Palouse.

This match represented an opportunity for revenge for the Zags as the Cougs walked away victorious in an early season battle that took place at the Kennel. Well, this young and fairly inexperienced Bulldogs squad did what the vaunted ‘23-24 squad couldn’t do: win against Wazzu.

The victory moves the Bulldogs up to 10-8 overall record with a 4-2 conference record, which currently places Gonzaga tied for first in the WCC along with four (4!) other teams including Portland, WSU, St. Mary’s, and Santa Clara.

The game started off in typical fashion for this season’s Zags: turnover. This would unfortunately continue across the remaining 40 minutes as the Bulldogs coughed up 22 turnovers. Thankfully though, the Cougs couldn’t hit the broadside of a bard in the first half as they went 11-28 compared to the Zags’ 12-26 that included five 3’s compared to just two for the opposition.

This resulted in a first half that concluded with Gonzaga leading by 8 points, a lead the Bulldogs would soon need as Wazzu’s head coach, Kamie Ethridge, made some key changes to her team that resulted in an explosive third quarter that saw them go 9-13 with 4 rainmakers, which helped cut the lead down to 2.

After this gut punch, the Bulldogs were at a pivotal point, not just for this game, but possibly the season as Wazzu entered the game leading the WCC with a 5-1 conference record. Thankfully for us though, the version of this Bulldogs’ squad came out with improved energy and decision making as they would go on to commit just 4 turnovers and hold the Cougars to just 6-17 from the field, 2-7 from deep, while themselves going 7-14 overall and 4-7 from deep to scrap by with the win.

Allie Turner found both her shooting touch this match as she led the team in scoring with 20 while also continuing her stretch of games with a positive A/T ratio as she earned 5 assists and 0 turnovers! In her last 4 games, the freshman has only been called for 5 turnovers while handing out 20 assists.

Turner’s 20 points matched a career-high that was set earlier this season in the defeat against Cal and also represent only the second time a Gonzaga freshman has dropped 20 points in a game. The only other player to do this: Courtney Vandersloot. And she only did it once! Of course, such a performance has earned Allie another WCC freshman of the week, which i believe is her *th

Overall, this was a strong victory for the Zags against a tough Cougars team that I imagine Fortier would prefer to not be on her side of the WCC Conference Championship bracket come springtime. Obviously, the turnovers are not great to see, particularly after some of the recent improvements, but the team is improving and they need bits of success to help build their confidence across the season.

GU will absolutely need such confidence as they will host the Portland Pilots, a team likely hungry to avenge their loss against the Zags a couple weeks ago, this Saturday at 6pm PST.