Final Stats

Box Score

MALIBU, Calif. - The Pepperdine women's basketball team fell at home on Saturday afternoon, losing to BYU, 84-78, in a tightly contested game.

The Waves led by as much as 10 in the first half, but BYU came back to grab a double digit lead in the second before Pepperdine made it close down the stretch. The Cougars hit their free throws late to seal the win and stay near the top of the WCC standings, however.

"I thought we played well today," said head coach Ryan Weisenberg. "They just got to the free throw line too much and that was the difference. Offensively we battled back and defensively I thought we did a pretty good job, though."

The Waves went up by 10 midway through the first half thanks to a 13-2 run. Pepperdine was shooting better than 50 percent through the first 10 minutes. The Cougars chipped away at the lead, though, and thanks to an 8-0 run to close the half, took a lead into the break. The run was punctuated by a last second layup by Kylie Maeda to give BYU a 33-31 lead.

Just over five minutes into the second half, Mackenzi Morrison hit a three to give BYU a 50-41 lead. The Waves answered with six straight points, though, and the teams would play within single digits of each other until late in the half.

BYU grabbed its largest lead of the game at the 3:22 mark, going up 64-74, and then hit seven free throws from there to help seal the win. The Waves cut it to an 80-74 game on two Bria Richardson (Hawthorne, Calif./Serra HS) foul shots with 29 seconds left and then with 13 seconds remaining, Keitra Wallace (Brea, Calif./Brea Olinda HS) put back an offensive rebound to cut the deficit to four. Pepperdine ran out of time though, as Maeda and Morrison didn't miss their free throws in the final seconds.

"We switched some things up today and I think that worked well," said Weisenberg. "Allie Green had a good game off the bench and Krista Pettepier gave us some good minutes in the starting rotation. Lexi Eaton getting to the line 19 times and (BYU) getting there 32 times is hard to overcome though."

The Cougars made 23-of-32 foul shots while Pepperdine hit 10-of-17. Eaton led all scorers with 29 points in the game, getting 14 of them at the charity stripe.

Green (Sacramento, Calif./Sacramento HS) and Richardson led the Waves with 24 points each on the day and Pettepier (Ankeny, Iowa/Ankeny HS/Pittsburgh) went 3-for-4 from the field with two steals and a block. Wallace also hit double digits with 13 points and a team-high eight rebounds.

The Waves were able to win the battle of the boards, outrebounding BYU 33-30, including a 10-4 edge on the offensive glass. Pepperdine had a 17-6 second-chance points lead and outscored the Cougars 38-24 in the paint.

The loss drops the Waves to 6-10 overall, 1-4 WCC, while BYU improves to 13-4, 5-1 WCC. Pepperdine will be back in action next week when they hit the road against Gonzaga on Thursday and Portland on Saturday.