It wasn't always pretty, but the USF women's basketball team won its eighth straight and remained unbeaten at home with a 65-38 win against Valley City State on Saturday afternoon.
The Cougars improved to 10-1 overall and are now 2-0 at the Stewart Center this season. USF returned to the court for the first time in three weeks and played in front of its home crowd for the first time since December 10. Valley City dropped to 11-9 overall.
"We were a little bit flat, and unfortunately when the ball wasn't going in we weren't making a lot of those effort plays, in terms of going for the rim and getting the extra rebound," head coach Travis Traphagen said. "A lot of credit goes to Valley City."
The Cougars shot just 37.7 percent from the field and 29.4 percent from behind the arc. They committed 12 turnovers and were out-rebounded by the Vikings, 34-31.
"You could definitely tell that we had three weeks off," said senior guard Vanessa Johnson, who scored a game-high 19 points on 7-of-15 shooting. "But, it was still good to be able to beat a solid Valley City team by almost 30 points. I think it says a lot about our team, that we can battle through some adversity."
The Cougars opened the scoring with a three by Johnson and picked up right where they left off in their last game, jumping out to a 15-6 lead with 13:45 on the clock. USF and Valley City then combined to miss their next 10 shots before a pair of Vikings free throws made it 15-8 with 8:52 remaining.
Valley City cut it to 15-10 on a put-back by Brittany Lehner before Johnson nailed three-pointers on consecutive Cougar possessions to give USF a 21-12 lead with five minutes left in the half. Alyssa Rushton hit a pair of freebies with three seconds left in the half and USF had a 28-18 advantage at the break.
USF poured it on after intermission, going on a 12-2 run to double up the visitors, 40-20 at the 14:10 mark. Traphagen did a full line change with just over three minutes to go and seconds later, a trey by Jaicee Ulmer gave USF its biggest lead of the game at 61-30. A Kelli Hoff lay-up with seven seconds left sealed the Cougars' 65-38 win.
"When you win close by 30, I guess I can't complain too much and it's a great win coming back after a 21-day break," Traphagen said. "Sometimes it's just better to win ugly."
Johnson had a team-high 19 points and led the Cougars in scoring for the fifth time this season. Sophomore Laura Johnson chipped in 10 points, four rebounds and two assists. Jamey Hofer grabbed a game-high eight rebounds (seven on the defensive glass) and also scored six points.
Every player on Traphagen's bench logged playing time and 11 of 13 Cougars scored at least one basket.
The Cougars made more free throws (15-of-17) than the Vikings attempted (6-of-8).
USF plays its next four games at home and will host the University of Nebraska-Omaha on January 15.
"What a fun atmosphere to be able to have a Division-I coming in next Sunday," Traphagen added. "We'll be ready to go."
