By Hunter Jacobson |
The gap between the West Coast Conference's best and worst was apparent in the Chiles Center on Thursday night. BYU entered Pilot territory as the top seed in the WCC and No. 22 in the nation while Portland holds the conference’s worst record. The Cougars proved their dominance and handed the Pilots a 84-59 loss.
Freshman guard Ellie Woerner led the Pilots in scoring with 14 points on 6-9 shooting. BYU's Lexi Rydalch, who leads the WCC in scoring, led all scorers with 27 points on 12-of-19 shooting, including three 3-pointers.
Turnovers were a problem for the Pilots in the first half. The Cougars scored 14 points off of 11 Pilot turnovers en route to building a 31-point lead at the midway mark.
Starting point guard Kaylee Van Loo got in foul trouble early and Darian Slaga replaced her in the one position. Pilot head coach Cheryl Sorenson said that because Slaga is inexperienced at the point, turnovers are to be expected.
“We were playing Darian at the point guard position and that’s not her natural position,” Sorenson said. “They made a couple good plays and we made some frustrating plays.”
The Pilots improved in nearly all areas in the second half. They decreased turnovers, improved their field goal percentage and outscored BYU 39-31.
“We were able to battle back in the second half,” Sorenson said. “We got (in) a little too deep to really recover, but the composure and the fight that they showed was good.”
BYU shot 53 percent from the field and went 12-of-25 from the 3-point line, including four three pointers from Cougars guard Makenzi Pulsipher.
The loss drops the pilots to 1-16 in WCC play and 3-25 on the year as the Cougars improve to 16-1 in conference and 24-4 overall.
The Pilots next game will be on Saturday Feb. 27 at 2 p.m. in the Chiles Center.
Hunter Jacobson is a sports writer for The Beacon. He can be reached at jacobsoh19@up.edu.
