Gilbreath, Trojans Come Up Just Short

For the Women of Troy it was a tale of two halves in Saturday’s game versus the Arizona State Sun Devils. The USC Women’s Basketball team lost its first home game of the season to the Sun Devils, bringing USC’s record to 13-7.

USC honored junior guard Briana Gilbreath before the game, who tallied her 1,000th career point last week versus Stanford. Unfortunately for USC, Gilbreath and the Women of Troy couldn’t summon that scoring ability in the first half. USC went into halftime shooting a dismal 33% from the field and trailing 33-21.

The second half was a different story, however, as USC picked up its intensity. The Trojans took the lead with about 5:30 left in the game. ASU managed to fight back, and the game went back and forth the rest of the way.

With the game tied at 60, ASU scored a layup to go up 62-60 with 22 seconds left on the clock. On USC’s ensuing possession, Gilbreath was fouled, giving her two free throws and a chance to tie the game. After sinking the first, Gilbreath’s second rimmed out and USC was forced to foul. With 8 seconds on the clock, ASU missed their first free throw of the game, and senior center Kari LaPlante snatched the rebound with 6.8 seconds left. USC inbounded the ball following a time out and hurried down the court for a last second shot by guard Ashley Corral that just missed, leaving the Sun Devils victorious over the Trojans, 62-61.

Gilbreath finished with a career-high eight steals. Corral led all scorers with 14 points on the night.