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MORAGA, Calif. - Saint Mary's defended its home court Sunday with a big win over a Pac-12 Conference opponent, taking down Washington State 81-75, in its 2017-18 home opener at McKeon Pavilion.

HOW IT HAPPENED

• Saint Mary's jumped out to an early 11-5 lead halfway through the first quarter before the Cougars responded with a 6-0 run to tie the game. The two teams stayed close for the remainder of the frame with the Gaels leading 22-19 heading into the second.
  
  
• The Gaels had a strong start in the second quarter as Megan McKay scored two buckets and Stella Beck finished a layup to extend the Gaels' lead to seven. The Cougars retaliated with four 3-pointers in just over two minutes, culminating with Alexys Swedlund's three-ball to put WSU up 33-32. Beck cut the Gaels' deficit to one point at 37-36 before the end of the half with her third basket of the game.
  
  
• The third quarter proved to be just as close as the first two with neither team grabbing a lead greater than three until Sydney Raggio's bucket pushed Saint Mary's up by five with 1:22 left in the period. Jasmine Forcadilla's 3-pointer gave the Gaels their biggest lead at eight points with less than a minute left and SMC finished the third leading 61-55.
  
  
• Saint Mary's maintained their lead for the entirety of the final quarter and led by as much as nine. The Cougars made it interesting with a 5-0 run to cut the lead to four but McKay scored her 22nd point of the afternoon on a layup with 1:13 remaining to ice the win for the Gaels.

• 13: Stella Beck is 13 points away from reaching 1,000 points in her collegiate career.
• 15: There were 15 lead changes in the game, all coming within the first three quarters.
• 22: Megan McKay led all scorers with 22 points. She also recorded a double-double with 11 rebounds.
• 26: The Gaels shot 26 free throws during the game and converted 19 of them (73.1 percent).
• 43: Saint Mary's outrebounded Washington State 43-30 in the win.

• "Today was a different mindset and coming off to a hard loss, we knew Washington was going to be tough. We had to bring the energy, we had to smart. We are really trying to protect our home court this year and today is perfect start to it. We have to take care of our bodies and take care of each other, we have little things to improve on that we will keep building from!

• "I think todays effort was a B+ or A-, our team has a tremendous amount of character and great players so we need to be consistent with our effort. Today we did a good job of understanding the situation at hand. We held onto a lead and we did that while they were pressuring us extremely hard and taking quicker and looser shots. That's hard to defend. I think our team did a good job when it came down to executing at the other end."
  
  
• "Megan played a little under double the minutes today, so her stats reflected that. Megan is monumental for our team to be successful, she is probably one of the best post players on the West Coast. She has to stay on the court, she has to make good decisions on the court."
  
  
• "I think Cal Poly is going to be a different team than Washington State and Cal. We are pleased, but we have some things to take care of. Our bench has to be better, we have to trust each other out there on the floor to do the right thing, and the coaches have to be able to trust that the players are going to do the right things. Missing shots is one thing, but missing a defensive assignments is completely different, and we have to be tighter and better on that."

• Saint Mary's next contest comes in one week when they host Cal Poly at 1 p.m. in McKeon Pavilion.
  
  
• Links for the live stream and live stats can be found on the Gaels' schedule page.
  
  
• Women's basketball season, single game and group tickets are available for purchase on SMCGaels.com or by calling the SMC Ticket Office at (925) 631-GoTx.