Game report: Portland 74, San Francisco 60

Maisie Burnham puts Freja Werth on a poster.  Photo by Scott Larson.

I took in another University of Portland women's basketball game the other night. It was a followup to the enjoyable game I had attended the week before. This time the opponent was the University of San Francisco, and this time Portland won pretty easily.

But it didn't start out that way. The Dons had a nice lead in the second quarter – I believe it got up to nine points – before the Pilots caught on and caught up. Portland led by two at the half and pulled away in fourth, winning the quarter 18–9.

USF's shooting in the first half was impressive. Freja Werth, a senior from Sweden, poured in three three-pointers during an intense barrage. She finished with 20 points. But the Dons couldn't buy a bucket in the fourth quarter, going 1-for-11 from the field. They ended up shooting only 33 percent for the game.

The Portland resurgence was led by Maisie Burnham, who corralled eight rebounds to go with 18 points. She was 6-for-6 from the foul line. Three other Portland players were in double figures, and Trista Hull grabbed 10 rebounds. The Pilots were clearly the better team in the paint and off the bench.

The Dons' starting lineup is like the United Nations. Along with the Swedish sharpshooter, they've got Luana Leite from Brazil, Angeliki Ziaka from Greece, and Emma Trawally Porta from Spain. Their only starter who was not currently holding an F-1 visa was Cami Fulcher, from little old West Linn, Oregon.

The scene at the Chiles Center was as splendid as it had been nine days before, and now the cheerleaders were back from winter break. The crowd was larger than it had been for the Gonzaga game, but only slightly so. There was the same excellent energy and only a minimal sprinkling of hype.

The UP coach, Michael Meek, came close to getting a technical foul a few times, and at the end of the game he infuriated the San Francisco coach, Molly Goodenbour, by calling a meaningless timeout with the game well in the bag and only 22 seconds left on the game clock. Meek also stopped things for a bizarre substitution with three seconds left. After the game, Goodenbour refused to shake his hand, and from where we sat, we could hear that she had a few F-words for him. As one of my seatmates remarked, "She wasn't wrong."

The Pilots are now off on a three-game road trip to face Gonzaga, then Oregon State, and then Washington State. Portland is presently one of five teams sitting at 5–2 at the top of the West Coast Conference standings. UP is undefeated on the road, but these three contests are going to be tough. Portland's two conference losses have been to Gonzaga and Oregon State. If the Pilots can come home with two wins from the trip, that'd be something.