PROVO, Utah—Behind
Jennifer Hamson’s career-high 31 points, BYU women’s basketball cruised by Loyola Marymount, 90-72, for its first West Coast Conference victory on Saturday.
With her eighth double-double of the season, Hamson led the Cougars with 31 points, 11 rebounds and five blocked shots. Junior
Ashley Garfield was a perfect 4 of 4 from the field, scoring nine points and leading the team with 14 rebounds while seeing extended minutes in place of the injured
Morgan Bailey.
Tying its season-high in points, BYU (11-1, 1-0) shot 58 percent from the field, tallied 20 assists and had four players score in double figures in the WCC opening win over LMU (3-9, 0-1).
The first half led off with BYU’s Eaton scoring the first five points of the game as BYU jumped out to a 7-0 lead. Hamson scored 20 of her points in the half on 8 of 12 shooting.
The largest lead of the half came with 2:18 left as the Cougars led the Lions by 16, 42-26. LMU then gained back some momentum as they cut the lead to 46-36 to end the half, due in part to BYU’s 12 first-half turnovers.
BYU regained some momentum in the second half, stretching the lead to 20 behind a 13-3 run powered by eight points from Eaton.
The Cougars kept the lead margin steady until about seven minutes left in the game when LMU sparked a 9-0 run to cut it to seven, 73-66.
On the next two possessions BYU pushed the lead back to double-digits when Xojian Harry scored a layup on an assist by Garfield, and Hamson converted a three-point play to tie her previous career high in points, helping the Cougars spark a 14-5 run to secure the victory.
BYU stays home Monday as it hosts Pepperdine at 5 p.m. MST in the Marriott Center. The game will be televised on BYUtv.
Player Notes:
Jennifer Hamson scored a career-high 31 points. She scored 20 points alone in the first half. She earned a double-double with 11 rebounds and was 9 of 11 at the free-throw line.
Lexi Eaton was the second leading scorer with 18 points and five rebounds.
Ashley Garfield led the team in rebounds with 14 and tied her season high nine points.
Team Notes:
BYU's largest run was 8-2 by Lexi Eaton at 15:23 in the second half. She drove to the basket to earn the extra point at the line, hit a 3-pointer and then drove again for the easy layup.
BYU shot 58.3 percent from the field and 46.2 percent from the 3-point range.
BYU forced 13 total turnovers with 9 in the first half.
BYU maintained the lead the entire game.
BYU improves to 11-1 on the season and 1-0 in conference play.
