Jan. 18—It took 3 1/2 quarters Saturday afternoon before the Gonzaga women’s basketball team finally found its rhythm.
For 3 1/2 quarters, the Loyola Marymount Lions didn’t look like a winless West Coast Conference team.
The Lions went through a late scoring drought, however, and Gonzaga took advantage, pulling away for a 69-58 victory at Gersten Pavilion in Los Angeles.
“It wasn’t going great, it wasn’t easy, but we were able to grind it it out until the end when we started to get the stops that we needed,” Gonzaga head coach Lisa Fortier said.
The win keeps Gonzaga tied for first place.
The Zags moved to 12-8 overall with their fifth consecutive win, 7-2 in WCC and knotted with Washington State, which got a measure of redemption with a 74-47 thumping of Santa Clara. The Cougars fell to Santa Clara 68-62 two weeks ago.
It was Gonzaga’s 34th consecutive win over Loyola Marymount.
The Zags used a superb day from freshman point guard Allie Turner, who finished with a career-best 23 points — the most by any GU freshman since Courtney Vandersloot had 20.
Turner, who made 9 of 18 shots from the field and 5 of 10 from 3-point range, added eight rebounds and five assists against one turnover. She has 57 made 3-pointers, most among all freshmen in the nation.
“She was confident, she was composed, she’s been handling a lot of pressure,” Fortier said of Turner. “She was ready to shoot it when we needed her to shoot it. When she was open, she let it fly. She took really good care of the ball.”
LMU point guard Naudia Evans, who hurt the Zags often, completed a three-point play to knot the score at 51 with 7:42 remaining.
That’s when the Lions went into a scoring funk and the Zags took over.
GU’s Esther Little scored down low off a nice feed from Yvonne Ejim, Claire O’Connor hit a 3-pointer and Turner made a driving basket to push Gonzaga ahead 58-53.
Little got another basket followed by Ejim’s three-point play and Gonzaga’s lead widened to 63-53 with 1 minute, 52 seconds left.
Two free throws and a basket from Ejim secured the victory.
“The key to shaking (LMU) was getting the stops that we needed,” Fortier said. “Their point guard (Evans) had a great game.
“We continued to battle on offense. Once we were able to keep her in front of us and not let her get any easy looks, we were able to change it.”
Ejim hit another career milestone, becoming the Zags’ all-time leading rebounder after becoming the all-time leader in made field goals on Thursday. She had eight rebounds, pushing her career mark to 985.
Ejim jumped past Kay Koppelman, who had 983 rebounds from 1987-91.
Ejim also reached double figures for the 62nd straight game.
She scored 19 points, moving to second in all-time Zags scoring behind Heather Bowman. Ejim vaulted past Vandersloot and has 2,074 points. Bowman had 2,165.
Little finished with eight points, 11 rebounds and two assists.
The Zags played a second straight game without graduate forward Maud Huijbens, who didn’t make the trip because she’s in concussion protocol.
Gonzaga played to the level of a winless conference opponent in the first half. And the Bulldogs didn’t defend the Lions’ lone offensive threat, Evans.
The Zags led 27-17 after Turner opened the second quarter with back-to-back 3-pointers. It was all Loyola Marymount (6-9, 0-7) thereafter in the quarter.
The Lions used a 7-0 surge to pull within 27-24, and Evans pulled them even when at 32 she hit a 3-pointer from the top of the arc at the buzzer to end the first half.
Gonzaga is off until Saturday, when it travels to Pepperdine.
“Hopefully, we’ll be able to get Maud (Huijbens) back and ready and get a little bit of rest and recover,” Fortier said.
