Women resolve to win in the new year

By Gabe Taylor

After a rough start in the first half of the season, the Santa Clara women's basketball team (2-13) enters West Coast Confernce play this Thursday hoping to get back into the winning column.

Following the decision to hire Jennifer Mountain as head coach, the women's basketball team has struggled to find a rhythm leading into the second half of the season.

"I know transition years can be difficult," transfer sophomore Lena Gipson said. "But it's not because of a transition year that we have the record that we have."

One of the bright spots for the Broncos this year is the development of Gipson.

The Hanford, Calif. native is dominating, averaging a double-double, putting up 12.9 points per game.

Her 10.4 rebounds per game holds the record in the WCC.

At the season's halfway mark, the Broncos have won a meager two games to go alongside 13 losses.

Santa Clara lost eight consecutive games, their most since losing nine straight in the 1982-83 season, before earning a 56-39 win over cross-town rivals San Jose State Sunday.

"We took them out of what they wanted to do," Mountain said. "We're certainly not executing it to perfection be any means. We're getting better every day."

The first-year head coach added that the team's aggressiveness helped their overall performance.

But that aggressive style of play has not been the case for the Broncos for most of this season.

"(Our record) is an accurate representation of the game we have been playing lately," Gipson said. She feels as though the team is struggling to close games, and they are not maintaining focus on a constant basis.

Despite the losses, the Broncos have played in many hard-fought games, Gibson said.

Finishing games with intensity has been a major problem, leaving Mountain and her team worried.

During their game against Sacramento State, the Broncos dropped hold of a 15-point lead, allowing 36 points in the second quarter. They went on to lose 62-52.

Gipson believes the problem is due to mental lapses rather than a lack of endurance.

"We need to find a way to practice our in-game presence and mental attitude," she said.

Mountain credits many of the team's hardships at the beginning of the season to not being fundamentally sound.

"We were turning the ball over left and right for the first five or six games," Mountain said. "We've done a much better job of slowing down and executing offensively."

Santa Clara has averaged 23.5 turnovers a game and has committed 20 or more turnovers in 11 of 16 games this season.

Unbalanced scoring has also been a problem for Santa Clara this year.

In the 57-51 loss to Boise State, Gipson and Maggie Goldenberger accounted for 72.6 percent of Santa Clara's 51 points.

Gipson scored 17 points and a game-high 13 rebounds, and Goldenberger added a career-high 20 points.

No other Santa Clara player scored more than five points. Starters Rhianna Faithfull and Sara Majors scored three, Liz Doran scored five and Alyssa Shoji came off the bench to score three points.

In the following game, Majors led the team with 17 points and outscored the four other Bronco starters who netted a collective 15 points in the 55-37 loss to UC Santa Barbara.

But in the win over San Jose State, Santa Clara had four players scoring in double-figures, led by Kathy Willinsky, who scored a career-high 14 points coming off the bench.

Thursday Jan. 8 marks the start of conference play, where the Broncos will play host to the Saint Mary's Gaels at 7 p.m. in the Leavey Center.

To the Broncos, it also marks a chance to turn the season around.

The Gaels are in similar shoes as the Broncos after coming off of a win, improving their record to 4-11 in non-conference play.

Santa Clara is hoping to capitalize on the fact that Saint Mary's has had difficulty when facing teams on the road, as their record away from home is a dismal 1-7.

Saint Mary's, however, has won the last three meeting between the two teams.

"I still have high expectations for league play," Mountain said. "It's a matter of putting all the pieces together."

Contact Gabe Tayor at gtaylor@scu.edu.