Nov. 18, 2001

Box Score

Melissa Garcia (Thornton, Colo./Thornton) scored 24 points, including her 1,000th career point, to lead the University of Denver women's basketball team to a 67-66 victory over visiting San Diego at Magness Arena.

"Melissa Garcia came to play tonight, and we have come to expect that from our senior," Head Coach Pam Tanner said. "Scoring 1,000 points couldn't happen to a better player. The only way you achieve that goal is to be a solid all-around player, because if you are just a shooter, teams' defense can take that away from you. We are very proud of Melissa."

Garcia became the Pioneers' 13th 1,000-point scorer with a three pointer at 16:59 in the first half. The Pioneers began the contest with an early eight-point as Sarah Cyran (Broomfield, Colo./Broomfield) capped the early run with a mid-range jumper seven minutes into the contest (12-4). But, San Diego mounted a 25-11 run to go on top by seven with seven minutes in the stanza. Denver rallied at the end of the half as Nicky Eason (Carpentersville, Ill./Carpentersville) converted a conventional three-point play and Ashley Atkinson (Springfield, Mo./Kickapoo) hit a short jumper to close the gap to two points. San Diego's Brandi Collato scored a layup at the end of the half to give her team a four-point advantage at the intermission.

Denver came back from halftime with renewed intensity and produced a 10-1 run in the first five minutes to take a 43-38 lead. The Pioneers led by as many as 14 points with 6:37 (57-43) remaining to play, but San Diego battled back with a 10-2 run, bringing the game back within striking distance at 59-53 with four minutes to play. Denver missed four free throws down the stretch and shot just 58.3 percent from the charity stripe for the game, but held on to win the game by one point.

"We are excited to win this game," Tanner said. "When we played with intensity, I think we were able to break the game open, but as soon as we let down, San Diego was right there. They are a good basketball team. If we could have hit our free throws at the end of the game, it wouldn't have been close, but those are some of the things that we will work on."

San Diego was led by Kerri Nakamoto with 24 points on 8-11 from the field and 5-7 from three-point range. As a team, the Toreros shot 43.5 percent from long range (10-23) and outrebounded the taller Pioneers 43-34.

With the win, the Pioneers increased their home winning streak to 15 games (dating back to last year), the longest of any team calling Magness Arena home. The Pioneers will play their next two games on the road, stopping first at No. 14/16 Baylor and then at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.