LOS ANGELES, Calif. – The Pepperdine women’s basketball team suffered its first loss to a Pac-10 team this season when University of Southern California narrowly defeated the Waves 55-52, Saturday afternoon at the Galen Center in Los Angeles, Calif.

 

The Waves (5-3) led by five points at the half (32-27) after a slow start that saw Pepperdine down by eight points early in the half. Shannon Johnson’s (Highland Village, Texas / Marcus HS) back-to-back three-pointers gave the team the boost they needed to continue a scoring run. Johnson ended the game with a season-high nine points, shooting 3-4 on three-pointers.

 

Ending the first half with a 44.8% shooting average to USC’s 32.4% and scoring off of ten turnovers and a 100% free-throw average, the Waves left the floor with confidence.

 

The Trojans (5-4) regained the lead with 3:27 left in the second half (50-48) after Nadia Parker scored her sixth basket of the half. With 1:15 remaining in the game, Teena Wickett (Vallejo, Calif. / Castlemont HS) scored to tie it up (52-52). USC’s Heather Oliver answered with a two-point shot putting the Trojans back on top. A Pepperdine foul gave the Trojans a three-point lead with 16 seconds left. The Waves took possession with 4.7 seconds remaining. A time-out by USC followed with Pepperdine unable to execute a final shot in the remaining seconds.

 

“We played hard. We just gave up too many turnovers and our rebounding wasn’t good today,” said Wickett.

 

USC outscored Pepperdine 28-20 in the second half, while the Waves gave up 30 turnovers to the Trojans 15 for the game. USC took advantage of Pepperdine’s turnovers scoring 27 of its 55 points off of turnovers.