Gonzaga women return to the Kennel undefeated in WCC, trying hard not to overlook Pacific
The Gonzaga women and their coach made one thing clear on Monday: they’re playing this game for fun, no matter the opponent.
The “one-game-at-a-time” attitude will get a severe test this week at the Kennel. On Thursday, the Zags host Pacific, which on paper at least is the worst team in the West Coast Conference.
Two days later comes the first-place showdown against No. 16 BYU – which begs the question: “How can you possibly not look past Pacific?”
After all, the Tigers are 4-13 overall and just 1-5 in the WCC. Two weeks ago in Stockton, California, the Zags beat Pacific by 41 points.
GU is 17-4 overall and 7-0 in the WCC, but sits squarely on the NCAA bubble. A win over BYU (18-1 overall, 8-0 in the WCC) would give GU’s chances a big boost.
“But we don’t look at it like that,” GU Coach Lisa Fortier said after Monday’s practice. “Our goal doesn’t say to win the games we’re supposed to win – and what does that even mean?”
Regarding the rest of the league, “most of them will take care of themselves if we’re playing at our best.”
“I think that if we starting thinking about (avoiding a bad loss), we would probably start playing badly,” Fortier said. “I think we’re just happy to play the game.”
After Fortier discussed the upcoming three-game home stand (which includes a makeup game against San Francisco on Monday night), seniors Cierra Walker and Abby O’Connor made the same points.
“We really don’t talk too much about the standings,” O’Connor said. “We need to focus on Pacific, byut obviously we’re excited for fans to come out on Saturday.”
Walker said she felt the same way.
“We can’t look past Pacific, and we just have to do what we’ve been doing,” said Walker, who is coming off a career-high 21-point effort on Saturday at San Diego.
A few seconds later, Walker was reminded about BYU’s visit to the Kennel last year. It was Walker’s two late 3-pointers that clinched a game that went far in helping GU win the WCC regular-season title.
Walker warmed to the subject.
“Yes that was amazing, and it definitely gets me hyped about this game,” Walker said.