Team begins defense of WCC title

By Jason Cohn

West Coast Conference action is just underway for the Santa Clara women's basketball team and heroines have already begun to emerge.

After dropping their WCC season-opening bout with Gonzaga, Santa Clara found themselves down by 18 points and facing an 0-2 conference record during Sunday's game against the Portland Pilots before junior guard Ashley Graham took over on offense.

Graham shredded the Pilot defense and exploded on the court to wind up with a career-high 33 points on 12-of-16 shooting that included a school record and conference record nine three-pointers. Overall, the Broncos sank a conference record 18 three-pointers.

"It was unbelievable. She was very aggressive from the moment she stepped onto the court and she just carried us on her back," head coach Michelle Bento-Jackson said. "I thought we showed a lot of character in the Portland game. Our backs were clearly up against the wall being down by 18, but we kept our composure and fought our way back."

Graham's final basket came in the clutch late in the game. The Broncos were down by one with 46 seconds to play when she hit the game-winning runner in the lane to put Santa Clara up 74-73.

"People don't usually play a zone defense against us so we just started attacking and fought our way back," Graham said.

"Once we're more aggressive, I think we can have more games where we explode on offense like that."

Senior guard Michelle Cozad also had a big game, recording her first ever triple-double with 13 points, 11 rebounds and a career-high 10 assists. Cozad is currently leading the WCC in two of these important categories -- averaging a career-high 18 points and 9.8 rebounds per game.

With the extraordinary numbers Cozad is putting up, she has been named WCC Player of the Month for December after receiving four player of the week awards between Nov. 21 and Jan. 2.

With her offensive spark, Cozad has led her team's offense to become the 15th-highest scoring team in Division I women's college basketball, averaging 76.8 points per game while leading the country in three-point field goals averaging almost 10 per game.

But such dominance on the perimeter has led to some problems with rebounding and controlling the paint. Santa Clara has the worst defense in the WCC, allowing 74.5 points per game while coming in second to last in rebounding, averaging just 37 boards per game while allowing opponents 43.

"For us to be successful, we know that we have got to be effective on the defensive end and limit our defensive breakdowns in the halfcourt in particular," Bento-Jackson said.

As far as rebounding is concerned, Bento-Jackson believes the team's small four-guard scheme does not excuse them from crashing the boards against bigger teams.

"Our leading rebounders are 5-foot-9 and 5-foot-3, so I believe it's a mentality and we have to commit to rebounding," Bento-Jackson said.

Cozad, who is leading the team and conference in rebounds, agrees.

"I don't think size is an issue at all; you just have to get in there and get the ball."

For Santa Clara, rebounding has been so crucial this season that the Broncos are 4-0 when leading the game in rebounds, while going just 3-8 when losing the battle of the boards.

While the Broncos have been playing relatively well this year, their tough opening schedule following a tumultuous offseason left them with a 1-4 record to begin with.

Head coach Bento-Jackson was nearly fired during the offseason amid allegations by former players that cited verbal abuse and being forced to play injured. After going through the appeal process, the university found that Bento-Jackson was wrongfully targeted and was restored back to her position as head coach.

Yet amid the investigation, Cozad insists that this was not a distraction on the court.

"We don't talk about what happened this summer. Nobody talks about it."

Bento-Jackson said that the issue was behind them, adding: "I'm proud of the way our team stuck together in the offseason, and we decided at the beginning of the year that it's behind us and we're out here to win ball games."

In order to continue to win games, the Broncos are going to have to be more aggressive -- not only on the boards, but on offense as well.

Santa Clara is second to last in the WCC in free throw attempts, even while Cozad and Kayla Huss have the two highest free-throw percentages in school history.

As for making a presence felt down low, the Broncos will rely heavily on junior Kasey Monteith and freshman Claire Goins this weekend, until junior forward Ashley Gonnerman returns from injury.

Gonnerman had been solid in the paint this season, averaging 10.3 points and 3.8 rebounds, and also has a team high four blocks.

For Bento-Jackson, it's clear that her team is going to have their work cut out for them.

"We have a lot of parity in our conference again and I believe we could finish first or we could finish fifth or sixth. We have to come out and compete in every game in the WCC and there's no time to relax," she said.

Although the WCC preseason poll ranked Santa Clara at No. 3, the players seem to have confidence that they are in a good position to repeat as WCC champions again this year.

"We're working just as hard and we're just as good as we were last year, so hopefully we can have the same success in conference play," Graham said.

Santa Clara will continue conference play when they take on San Diego on Saturday at 2 p.m. in the Leavey Center.

Contact Jason Cohn at (408) 551-1918 or jrcohnstead@hotmail.com.