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University of the Pacific

Women's Basketball

Young And Simmons Lead Pacific To A Big, 84-70, Win Over Fresno State

Dec. 6, 2008

Box Score

Stockton, Calif. - Behind stellar nights from seniors Janae Young (Sacramento, Calif.) and Amber Simmons (Chico, Calif.) the Pacific women's basketball team picked up an impressive, 84-70, win over Fresno State on Saturday, December 6. The win moved the Tigers to 3-3 on the year while the Bulldogs fell for just the second time this season, dropping to 5-2.

Showing what they could do together when both are in rhythm, Young and Simmons torched the Bulldog defense for 48 of the Tigers' 80 points in the contest. Rounding into the form that earned her all-conference honors a season ago, Young continued her big week in the stat books, posting a career-best 27 points against the Bulldogs on 10-of-19 shooting. She just missed her second straight double-double of the week, grabbing nine rebounds.

Not to be outdone, Simmons continued her assault on the scorers sheet with another 20+ point performance, dropping 21 points on 9-of-17 shooting before fouling out of the contest in the final minutes of the second half. On top of her points, Simmons posted her second career double-double with 10 rebounds to lead all players on the glass.

With the Tigers' seniors leading the way, the game was won by Pacific on the glass as the Tigers outrebounded their opponents, one of the top rebounding team's in the nation coming into the contest, 45-to-35, for the evening.

From the opening tip the Tigers established themselves on the offensive end of the court, jumping out to a quick five point lead just one minute in to the game at 7-2. Simmons led the way with a pair of three-pointers on her first two shots to get the Tigers going. Pacific would sustain its five point lead for most of the half, riding the ebbs and flows of the game with solid defense and timely shooting. As the Bulldogs' scored, the Tigers would answer back pushing their lead to as much as 10 points in the half with their last 10 point lead coming at 37-27 with just under three minutes to play.

Despite their comfortable lead, Pacific appeared to tense up as the halftime break neared, allowing the Bulldogs to play their way right back into the game with a 9-2 run to close out the half. Missed shots, errant passes and pour rebounding allowed Fresno State to cut the Tigers' lead to just three points at the break.

Seeing their big lead cut to just a single possession, Pacific again came out of break strong, reestablishing the lead to five points, a mark the Tigers would hover around for the first eight minutes of the half.

Once again, the Bulldogs pushed back, this time taking the lead away from the Tigers just after the second media timeout at 53-52. After a technical foul was assessed to the Tigers' bench for arguing calls with the officials, the Bulldogs appeared as if they would steal away the momentum of the contest and take control of the game. However, the technical had just the opposite affect on the game as the Tigers came out of the free-throws angry and inspired from which they went on a 12-2 run to push their advantage back up to nine points.

All five Tigers on the court at the time scored during Pacific's run with Young and Simmons combining with senior Amy VanHollebeke (Carlsbad, Calif.), junior Emma Head (San Diego, Calif.) and freshman Claire McLeod (Victoria, Australia) to break open the game. McLeod and Head sparked the Tigers' second half push with their relentless crashing of the boards as the duo combined to grab 12 rebounds in the half and 16 total rebounds for the game.

McLeod posted new career-high's in scoring and rebounding as the freshman tallied her first 10+ point scoring night with 12 points while also grabbing seven rebounds. Down the stretch, McLeod helped put away the Bulldogs by hitting 6-of-7 from the line as the Tigers sunk 21-of-28 free-throws in the contest.

Despite being held scoreless from the floor, VanHollebeke managed to score eight points in the game, all coming from the line as the senior point guard was a perfect 8-of-8 in the game. In the final 1:40 of the contest, the Tigers went 11-of-12 at the stripe to take home their third home win of the season.

On the other end of the floor, three Bulldogs hit the double-digit mark in scoring, led by Bailey Amundsen's 17 points on 6-of-8 shooting. LaShay Fears and Marnique Arnold rounded out the high scorers for Fresno State, posting 13 and 10, respectively.

Coming into the contest the Bulldogs were averaging 10.3 three-pointers per contest. Pacific held Fresno State to just 5-of-18 from distance while drilling 7-of-17 from behind the arc. At the line, the Bulldogs were just 19-of-35.

The Tigers will hit the road for a pair away from the Spanos Center with their first of two being at Idaho on Thursday, December 11. Game time is scheduled for 7:05 pm.

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