SPOKANE, Wash. – The Gonzaga women’s basketball team introduced new players and let fans get reacquainted with some familiar ones while putting on a great performance at the annual Numerica Fan Fest inside the McCarthey Athletic Center Saturday afternoon.
Fans got their first look at the 2018-19 Zags with festivities on the court, including an intersquad scrimmage. The Bulldogs played a four-quarter controlled scrimmage with the second half running clock.
Gonzaga fans were able to get their faces painted, collect their 2018-19 posters and schedule cards, and grab their women’s basketball season ticket packages. On the court, fans had the chance to play ‘Knockout’ with a few Bulldog players and enjoy a three-point shooting contest.
Chandler Smith was the outright winner of the three-point contest, defeating Louise Forsyth by one with 15 made threes. Laura Stockton claimed the title of the knockout game.
For the first time in Fan Fest’s nine-year history, the scrimmage ended in a tie; the Blue team tied the White team 18-18. Stockton led the White team with a game-high 10 points, finishing 4-of-7 from the floor including a perfect 2-for-2 from the line. Jill Townsend pulled down a game-high eight boards and chipped in two points. For the Blue team, Smith finished with a team-high eight points and three boards; Zykera Rice chipped in five points and three rebounds.
“It was good,” Stockton said. “We’re a little rusty, so it’s nice to be able to do this. You can kind of get the jitters out and figure out what we need to work on in live situations. So it’s good for us. It was a fun game, and a nice little comeback for my team, which was fun.”
The White team trailed the Blue team by nine points (17-8) with 3:19 to go in the third quarter, and back-to-back buckets from Stockton cut the lead to five, 17-12. Stockton’s scoring run continued into the fourth as she converted two free throws to bring the White team within a single possession, 17-14. Forsyth converted a jumper with 2:40 remaining to cap an 8-0 run for the White team.
The Blue team ended the run with a free throw from Rice, and Stockton once again finished in the paint for the game-tying layup on the ensuing possession.
“It’s exciting,” Rice said. “It showed us that we have quite a bit to work on, but I’m excited to work with this group of girls on everything that we lack and everything that we need to get better on.”
The Zag faithful had a chance to get autographs from the women’s basketball team after the scrimmage.
Gonzaga begins its season with an exhibition game against Carroll College on Nov. 2 at 6 p.m. inside the McCarthey Athletic Center.