Gaels Hold Off Dons 67-63
By Mike Rose
A late 2nd half USF rally wasn’t enough to stop the Gaels tonight at the War Memorial Gym in San Francisco as the Gaels managed their 16th straight win against the Dons.
The Gaels offense came out strong tonight. St. Mary’s broke out to an early 14-6 lead off a quick seven points from Jordan Page. USF answered with a 6-0 run bringing the score to 19-16.
The Dons were shut out from scoring for the next five minutes as the Gaels went on an 11-0 run. This made the score 30-16 with just over three minutes remaining in the half. The Gaels sent the Dons to the locker room up 37-23.
The Gaels out-scored the Dons 18-8 from the paint. Jordan Page and Steven Holt led the point totals tied at nine. Cody Doolin led the Dons with eight points. Cole Dickerson was held to five.
From the floor the Gaels went 14-30 (46.7%) verses the Dons at 9-25 (36.0%) Beyond the arc, the Gaels were 3-9 (33.3%) while the Dons were 4-7 (57.1%). St. Mary’s bench was held just two points from Beau Levesque. The Dons bench put up five. St. Mary’s defense again came on strong holding the Dons to just 23 points.
In the second half, the Gaels started off 0-5 from the floor. At 15:24 they were 1-8 and had only scored two points. The Dons were not impressive either in this sluggish start for both teams scoring just 4 points.
The Dons chipped away at the Gaels lead cutting the score to 44-33 with 10:52 to play. The Gaels were just 3-11 from the floor. Both teams continued sloppy play.
At 7:39 the score was 52-39 Gaels. The Gaels were 5-17 and the Dons 5-13 from the floor. The Gaels scored a quick five points to the Dons two giving them their largest lead of the night 57-41. This was followed by a 7-0 run in 45 seconds by the Dons to close the gap to 57-48 with five minutes left. The Gaels had some difficultly with the Dons trap defense.
At 4:04 the Dons cut it the lead to eight 59-51. This was answered by a quick 3 pointer from Page bringing the Gaels back up 11, 62-51 late in the game. With 1:53 left the Gaels held on to a nine point lead 62-53.
With just 35.4 seconds to play the Dons cut the lead to seven 62-55. Dellavedova was fouled and hit 1-2 from the line. With 16.1 seconds to play, the Dons hit a quick three pointer off a 9-1 run cutting the Gael lead to three. In a last few minute thriller, the Gaels held on to win the game 67-63.
The Gaels close the night going 23-54 from the floor (42.6%). The Dons went 23-51 (45.1%) but managed 8-16 (50.0%) from three point land compared to the Gaels 5-15 (33.3%). For St. Mary’s Page lead the way with 19, Brad Waldow had 13, Holt had 14 rebounds. For the Dons, Doolin ended with the high score of 16. Both Holmes and Dickerson had 10.
The Gaels move to 7-1 in the WCC off their sixth straight win. The Dons drop to 2-7. The Gaels return home to face Portland on Saturday afternoon 02/14/2013 at 4:30pm.