March 1, 2002

Box Score

(San Diego) - USF battled to the bitter end, but fell 82-77 to a determined effort from Pepperdine in the 2002 West Coast Conference Women's Basketball Tournament semifinals at the Jenny Craig Pavilion on Friday. With the loss, the Lady Dons (18-11) put their post season hopes in the hands of the NCAA and WNIT Tournament committees on "Selection" Sunday, while Pepperdine (22-7) advances to the tournament title game on Sunday.

San Francisco gave the Waves everything they could handle tonight as Pepperdine avenged a loss to the Lady Dons in the opening round of the WCC Tournament last season. USF shot the ball well, connecting at a .471 clip (24-51) and made half (5-10) of their 3-pointers. In the end, San Francisco was simply unable to overcome a dominating rebounding performance by the Waves, who held an overwhelming 19-9 edge on the offensive glass and a 42-28 overall lead.

For the second straight game, USF took a slim lead into the locker room, 39-35, behind nine first half points from junior guard Alicia Hernandez. The Lady Dons came out firing to open up the second half and extended their lead to 45-38 on a driving lay-up from junior guard Lisa Whiteside at the 18:28 mark. Pepperdine and USF then traded baskets until the Waves scored five unanswered points to tie the contest at 48-48 with 15:03 remaining on a 3-pointer from sophomore guard Shandrika Lee, who scored 14 points and went 4-of-5 from long distance.

USF broke a 51-51 tie on a lay-up from senior guard Lindsey Huff, followed by a steal and a breakaway lay-up from freshman guard Toni Russell to make the score 55-51 at 12:03. From there neither the Waves or the Lady Dons could make a stop and traded buckets. A Pepperdine lay-up at 6:05 gave them a six-point lead, 70-64 with 6:05 left and they would hold the lead until Hernandez scored another 3-pointer to give USF a 75-74 lead at 3:55. Freshman forward Corry Berger scored a turnaround jumper with 2:13 remaining to give USF their last lead at 77-76 and the Lady Dons would not score for the remainder of the contest.

Sophomore forward Carey Sauer scored a team-high 17 points on 5-of-6 from the floor and went a perfect 6-of-6 at the charity stripe. Berger finished with 13 points and five rebounds off the USF bench, while Hernandez added 16 points going 4-for-5 from downtown to go along with seven rebounds and five assists. Huff finished with nine points in 21 minutes.