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LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- A big fourth quarter got the Pepperdine women's basketball team back into the game, but regular-season champion Gonzaga held on for a 81-70 victory in the quarterfinals of the West Coast Conference Championships on Friday afternoon at the Orleans Arena, ending the Waves' season.

The Bulldogs were unstoppable early and led 53-24 at halftime and by as many as 34 points in the third quarter. But the Waves kept playing hard, outscoring the Zags 32-14 in the fourth quarter and getting the game back into single-digits in the final minute.

The eighth-seeded Waves (10-20) were coming off a 74-63 victory over Santa Clara the day before, while the top-seeded Bulldogs (25-5) were playing their first game of the tournament after a bye.

BIG WAVES

• Junior forward Yasmine Robinson-Bacote (Hillside, N.J./Hillside HS) led the Waves with 19 points and seven rebounds. Ten of her points came in the fourth quarter.
• Junior guard Paige Fecske (Studio City, Calif./Chaminade HS) had 16 points, six rebounds and three assists.
• Senior forward Peyton Langston (Carson, Calif./Mater Dei HS/Evansville) scored 11 points and grabbed four offensive rebounds.
• Freshman guard Rose Pflug (Portland, Ore./Sunset HS) scored nine points off the bench.

KEY STATS

• After Gonzaga shot 60% in the first half, the Waves held them to 40% in the second (and 52.6% for the game).
• Pepperdine improved from 31.4% shooting in the first half to 60.7% in the second half (including 73.3% in the fourth quarter), good for 44.4% overall.
• The Bulldogs went 9-for-20 from three, while the Waves were 8-for-21.
• Gonzaga's Jill Barta, the WCC Player of the Year, scored a game-high 24 points (19 in the first half).

PLAY BY PLAY

The Bulldogs scored the first six points, necessitating a Pepperdine timeout after just two minutes. It was a double-digit lead less than five minutes in at 16-6, and 27-13 at the end of the first period.

A three-pointer by Robinson-Bacote and a basket by Langston got it back to single-digits at 27-18 to start the second quarter, but a 14-0 Gonzaga run pushed the lead to 41-18, and it was eventually 53-24 at halftime.

Gonzaga's biggest lead of the game came at 34 at 58-24, but an evenly played third quarter saw both teams score 14 points, keeping the halftime margin the same at 67-38 after three.

The fourth quarter belonged to the Waves. They began with an 11-3 run, and later got back-to-back three-pointers from Fecske, followed by a basket by Robinson-Bacote to make it 75-62 with under three minutes left. Gonzaga was forced to put its starters back in around this time. A Langston three-pointer got the deficit to nine at 79-70 in the final minute.

NOTABLES

• DeLisha Milton-Jones led the Waves to 10 wins in her first season, the first time the program reached double-digit victories since 2011-12.
• This ended up being the final game for three Waves: senior Kim Jacobs and graduate transfers Tylinn Carter and Peyton Langston.
• Yasmine Robinson-Bacote ended her junior season with 1,060 points, moving up to #20 on the Waves' all-time scoring list.

HIGHLIGHTS