Winning on the road is never easy.
Both the men’s and women’s basketball teams for Washington State nabbed road WCC wins on Thursday night. Both however, took different paths to their victories.
To start the night, the women’s team demolished the San Francisco Dons, 74-58. The Cougars led by as much as 28 in the first half as the Dons struggled without their star Debora dos Santos, who suffered a season-ending torn ACL in practice.
The Cougars came out firing from the start. Jenna Villa kicked things off with a pair of treys to set the tone, before Tara Wallack took over the first quarter with 10 points on a pair of treys, a layup and two free-throws. Freshman Dayana Mendes impressed off the bench with five points and a trey. By the time the first quarter had ended, WSU had an incredible 25-8 lead.
WSU shot 49% from the field and hit half of their 18 three-point attempts in the first half. In just the first 20 minutes of play, WSU had more makes from beyond the arc than USF had from inside or outside.
The dominant first half, led by 14 points from Jenna Villa, gave the Cougars a 24-point halftime lead. USF never really threatened in the second half, getting only as close as 15 midway through the fourth quarter. Tara Wallack led the Cougars overall in scoring with 16 points and hauled in nine rebounds. Ele Villa tacked on 10 points of her own.
The win pushes WSU into a three-way tie for first in the WCC with Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s at 6-2 in conference play.
“Couldn’t have been happier with the first half. Gave them a little bit in the second quarter, but obviously it’s their home and they’re going to respond the right way.” Kamie Ethridge said. “Excited about winning and winning on the road and having that kind of win.”
Things didn’t come as easy for the men’s team about 500 miles south in San Diego.
After WSU got out to a blistering 13-0 start and pushing the lead out to 18-2, the Cougars went ice cold. WSU made just one field goal after taking the 16-point lead and went 6:43 between field goal…ATTEMPTS. Let me say that again. WSU went 403 seconds without even putting up a shot attempt! Sloppy turnovers and allowing the Toreros to haul in multiple offensive rebounds to extend their possessions. WSU’s offensive struggles allowed the Toreros to swing the momentum with a 25-7 run to shift WSU’s game-high 16-point lead into a USD two-point edge at half. USD’s Tony Duckett put the exclamation point on the Toreros’ dominant run with a thunderous dunk over Kase Wynott to end the half.
In just the first half, USD scored 21 of their 27 points off of WSU turnovers or on second chances after an offensive rebound. WSU finished the first 20 minutes of play with 12 turnovers and allowed the Toreros to grab nine of their 20 misses for offensive rebounds.
The Cougars finally ended their 9:40 long field goal make drought with a layup from Nate Calmese to begin the second half and tie the game at 27. As WSU fought to try and finally seize control of the game, USD had an answer at every turn. The Toreros momentum peaked when Duckett dunked over a Cougar defender for a second time, this time on Ethan Price. USD’s outnumbered crowd roared as the Toreros now led by seven.
WSU fought their way back into the game with an 8-0 run, anchored by seven straight points from Nate Calmese to flip the lead over to WSU and get the WSU faithful — who appeared to outnumber the Torero faithful — in San Diego on their feet.
The lead wouldn’t last long as USD responded with back-to-back buckets to swing the lead out to four in favor of USD. This is where the lead would spend most of the second half. WSU would answer, bring the game back within a possession, then USD would push the lead back out to four. Finally, WSU broke through with 1:48 to play thanks to a Calmese trey to give WSU the lead. The Torero’s started to look more like their 4-14 record in the final minutes with back-to-back turnovers following the Calmese bucket to set WSU up with a chance to take their own four-point lead. Calmese used a pair of hesitation moves to put get a step on his defender and attacked the rim for a layup to give WSU a two-possession lead. The final 19 seconds turned into a free-throw competition. Calmese, who struggled to knock down his charity stripe shots late against Pacific, was nails this time around, going a perfect 4/4 in the final moments, allowing WSU to escape San Diego with the win.
Winning on the road is never easy. It’s what makes the women’s blowout even more impressive, and the men’s survival impressive considering the circumstances.
Both teams are right back to work on Saturday with the women’s team traveling to Santa Clara and the men’s team returning home to host Portland.