Women's basketball sweeps at home
By Josh Griffin
Behind the late game heroics of senior guard Caroline Gruening, the Santa Clara women's basketball team completed another flawless weekend at home by defeating Bay Area foes St. Mary's and USF this past weekend.
The weekend sweep brought the Broncos home record to 10-0 on the season.
The undoubted star of the weekend for the Broncos was Gruening, who made both a layup to send the St. Mary's game to overtime, and a three-pointer to defeat USF. As a result, she was honored with the West Coast Conference Player of the Week, making her the fourth Bronco to receive the honor this season. She scored a career high 25 points against St. Mary's, and followed up with nine against San Francisco.
The game on Thursday between the Broncos and Gaels of St. Mary's, which brought Santa Clara against the preseason WCC favorite, turned out to be the first double-overtime game in the history of Santa Clara women's basketball.
In spite of Gruening's dominating performance, her supporting cast continued their season of strong play, as the entire starting lineup reached double digits. Junior forwards Kendra Rhea and Julie Butler finished with 14 and 15 points respectively, while junior forward Tammy Annas added 12 and senior point guard Becki Ashbaugh poured in 15 points to go with 12 assists.
The Broncos trailed the Gaels by two points with 14 seconds remaining, but Gruening converted a field goal to tie the game and bring the teams into the first overtime. The Broncos got off to an early start in that first overtime, but the play of Gaels star Jerkisha Dosty kept the game close, and in fact brought the game to a tie at the end of the first overtime period.
In the second overtime, Santa Clara would again jump to a four-point lead, only to have it nullified by St. Mary's. Then Ashbaugh hit the game-winning three. Gruening and Ashbaugh sealed the game by converting three free throws combined to close out the second overtime period at 93-90, bringing to an end the longest game in Santa Clara's long basketball history.
On Saturday, Santa Clara avoided a potential letdown and maintained their perfect play at home by defeating the Dons of USF behind yet another solid all-around contributions from the entire team. Annas lead the team with 17 points, while Ashbaugh and Butler kicked in 13 and 12 respectively. Ashbaugh completed her all-around statistical night with nine rebounds and seven assists.
The late game heroics struck again for the Broncos who took their final go-ahead lead at 59-55 on a Gruening three pointer from the baseline. Ashbaugh than went on to convert six consecutive free throws to seal the 65-64 victory. Ashbaugh is approaching two statistical firsts in Santa Clara history. At weekend's end, she was 26 points from 1000 for her career, which would make her the first 1000 point/500 assist women's basketball player at Santa Clara. Additionally, she is 36 assists behind Jennifer Lucas for the all-time lead as a Bronco.
The weekend sweep of the other Bay Area schools in the WCC brought the Broncos season record to 16-5 overall and 6-2 in conference. They currently stand one game behind Pepperdine in the WCC standings.
The Broncos will now take their 10 natives of the Pacific Northwest on the annual trip to Portland and Gonzaga. This homecoming of sorts always gives the Broncos plenty of incentive to play well. They will play Portland on Thursday night and follow up on Saturday with the Bulldogs of Gonzaga. Both games tip at 7:00 p.m.