PORTLAND, Ore. - The No. 24 Gonzaga University women's basketball team opened the 2011-12 West Coast Conference season with an 80-65 victory at the University of Portland Thursday night.

The Bulldogs improved to 11-2 overall on the year with the win and have now won six-straight.

Senior Kayla Standish and redshirt sophomore Haiden Palmer paced the Zags, each scoring 20 points. Palmer had 13 of her 20 points in the first half, while Standish had 16 of her 20 in the second half.

It was a tight first 12 minutes with the scored tied at 17-17 at 11:00 and Gonzaga holding just the 22-19 edge with 8:34 to play in the half.

The Bulldogs started to pull things together and used a 12-5 run over the next four and a half minutes to gain their first double-figure lead of the contest at 34-24. Junior Taelor Karr started the run off with a 3-pointer and closed the spurt off with another 3-pointer. For the half, Karr was a perfect 4-of-4 from the field, including hitting all three 3-pointers for 11 points.

Gonzaga gained its then largest lead of the first half when senior Kelly Bowen drained a jumper with 1:53 to put the score at 38-27.

Palmer's last second jumper gave the Bulldogs the 40-29 halftime advantage.

Gonzaga played all but four minutes of the opening 20 minutes without senior Katelan Redmon who was hit with two quick fouls.

Portland opened the second half hitting the first bucket to slice Gonzaga's advantage to nine points but the Bulldogs rattled off a 14-5 run to gain the 18-point advantage at the 14:35 mark.

Four minutes later the Zags broke the 20-point plateau and went on to grab their largest lead of the game on a jumper by Bowen to put the score at 63-40 at 10:06.

Portland was able to get the lead down to 14 with 4:17 to play but another 6-0 spurt put the lead back at 20 points and out of reach at 73-53 with 2:27 remaining.

For the game, Gonzaga shot 51.3 percent from the field (29-56), including 46.2 percent (6-of-13) on 3-pointers and was an impressive 88.9 percent (16-of-18) at the charity strip.

The Bulldogs were sloppy with the ball, turning it over 25 times. Luckily for GU, the Pilots were just as sloppy, turning the ball over 28 times which turned into 32 points for the Zags.

Portland was led by ReZina TecleMariam with a game-high 21 points. The senior hit 7-of-15 from the floor, including 5-of-9 from beyond the 3-point arc.

Gonzaga closes out non-conference play Sunday when it welcomes Northeast Conference member Saint Francis (Pa.) to the McCarthey Athletic Center. Game is slated to begin at 2 p.m.