LAS VEGAS — The Santa Clara women’s basketball team, playing with more confidence than it showed all season, put together its best second half of the year to help register a 74-61 upset win over Portland on Saturday at Orleans Arena to advance to the semifinals of the West Coast Conference tournament.
Riding the momentum of Friday’s last-seconds win over San Diego, the eighth-seeded Broncos held the No. 4 Pilots to just eight field goals in the second half and got a 23-point, 15-rebound performance from forward Lena Gipson to nearly double its season win total in a 24-hour span.
Santa Clara (5-26), which hadn’t registered back-to-back victories since the opening two games of the season, will play No. 1 seed and overwhelming tournament favorite Gonzaga at 11:30 a.m. today. The winner advances to Monday’s championship game.
“These girls believe. That’s the bottom line,” said second-year Broncos coach Jennifer Mountain, who was an assistant for seven years at Gonzaga. “They believe in themselves, and confidence and energy can do a lot.”
The Broncos trailed by five points at halftime and fell behind 41-32 two minutes into the second half. But they allowed only four points over the next nine-plus minutes to take a 56-45 lead with 8:23 to go.
Santa Clara guards Telisha Anderson and Alyssa Shoji combined for 28 points but also had a hand in containing Portland guard Laiken Dollente, who was 5-for-7 from the floor in the first half but finished 6-for-16, with her only second half field goal coming in the final seconds.
The Broncos had a 48-33 rebounding advantage on the Pilots (18-12) and got 13 points from reserve Ashley Armstrong, who came into the tournament averaging just over five points per game.
“They out-scrapped us for loose balls, they were more physical, and we didn’t defend very well,” Portland coach Jim Sollars said.
The Broncos certainly didn’t lack for confidence Saturday.
They had lost 67-64 to the Pilots just a week ago and were coming off Friday’s 68-67 upset of No. 5 San Diego when Maggie Goldenberger hit a winning jumper with 3.3 seconds left.
“It was a huge confidence boost for the entire team,” Gipson said. “We knew what we could do, and we have often been on the other side of a buzzer-beating shot. That was just a physical manifestation of what we all felt inside.”
