Santa Clara Falls to USF at Home

Jared Brownridge’s 20 points not enough against San Francisco

Brent HanowerTHE SANTA CLARAJanuary 28, 2016

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Broncos’ disappointing season continued last Thursday against the University of San Francisco, as the team dropped the game 74-61, falling to 7-14 (3-6 WCC) on the season.

The Bay Area Rival,who entered the game 9-9 (3-5 in WCC).

KJ Feagin added 11 points and nine assists, while Nate Kratch had six points, 12 rebounds and three steals. Matt Hauser added eight off the bench and Jared Brownridge led the Broncos with 20 points.

For the Dons, Devin Watson entered the game as the second leading scorer in the WCC (20.3 ppg) and sixth in assists (5.2 ppg). Watson led all scorers with 22 points, six assists and five rebounds. Uche Ofoegbu added 21 points and five rebounds. Tim Derksen added 19 points.

After last week’s games, Brownridge hoped to change the early scoring drought against USF.

“That’s just me needing to be more aggressive in the first half, as well as in the second half, so I can really step it up a notch when I see that we’re down,” Brownridge said.

The junior guard scored the first seven points of the game and the first 15 points for the Broncos, going 3-5 from behind the three point arc. Both teams struggled at the end of the first half, the Broncos making just two of their last 14 shots.

At the end of the first half, the Broncos led 35-32. Brownridge led all scorers with 15 points. At half, Kratch secured a game high of eight rebounds, while Feagin had a game high of six assists. Helping the Broncos were nine bench points, USF had zero.

“I think what went well in the beginning of the game was that we got off to a good lead,” Kratch said. “We were moving the ball, we were aggressive on the offensive end, really sprinting the floors once we got rebounds.”

The second half was not pretty for the Broncos as they got outscored 26-42.

Watson exploded for the Dons in the second half with 17 points, while Derksen added an additional 12 points.

Brownridge went 2-6 on field goals in the second half. Henrik Jadersten led the Broncos in the second half with six points, coming on two back to back threes.

As regulation winded down, the Broncos shot 1-9 as their scoring drought reached 2:38.

A Brendyn Taylor layup secured the final points of the game, a 74-61 final. Surprisingly, the Dons were successful with only two bench points, while the Broncos countered with 20 bench points.

“What really hurt us was not communicating on the defensive end and in transition, which led to them getting wide open shots,” Kratch said.

The Broncos go on the road for the next two weeks, facing the Pacific Northwest schools this week.

On Thursday, the Broncos will face off against the 15-5 (7-2 WCC) Gonzaga Bulldogs in Spokane. Gonzaga split their week’s slate losing a 70-67 contest at St. Mary’s and beating Pacific.

The Broncos barely lost their last matchup against Gonzaga.

Saturday night the Broncos will travel to Portland to take on the University of Portland Pilots (9-13, 3-6 WCC). 

Contact Brent Hanower at bhanower@scu.edu or call (408) 554-4852.