LARAMIE, Wyo. – The 17/18 Gonzaga women's basketball team stymied a late fourth-quarter Wyoming run to claim a 65-54 victory over the Cowgirls inside the Arena-Auditorium Tuesday evening in Laramie, Wyo.
 
"This has been a tough trip with things outside of our control," head women's basketball coach Lisa Fortier said. "Our team showed some great resilience in our efforts to control what we could control tonight. We played a couple really good quarters today, made our free throws down the stretch and got some big stops. We really relied on each other offensively and had some big time performances."
 
Gonzaga (10-1) was led by a career-high 18 points from LeeAnne Wirth who finished 6-of-10 from the floor and a perfect 6-of-6 from the line to lead the Zags in scoring for the third-straight game. The junior forward added a game-high nine rebounds, two blocks and a steal. Jessie Loera also had a career night, finishing with a career-high 16 points to go along with five assists and two steals. Katie Campbell rounded out the double-figure scoring with 10 points.
 
The Bulldogs shot 42.6 percent from the floor, 30.0 percent from long range and were a perfect 16-of-16 from the charity stripe. The last time the Zags had a perfect effort from the free-throw line was against San Diego in the WCC Tournament Championship on March 6, 2018. The Bulldogs edged the Cowgirls in rebounding 35-31 and outscored Wyoming 26-18 in the paint.
 
Wyoming (6-5) opened the first quarter with a quick 5-0 run before two free throws from LeeAnne Wirth put GU on the board. Both squads shot over 50 percent in the opening quarter, with Gonzaga shooting an even 50 and Wyoming hitting 5-of-9 attempts to shoot 55.6 percent from the floor. The Cowgirls led by as many as five points in the quarter, but a 6-3 GU run cut the lead to one point (16-15) by the end of the first.
 
Gonzaga took its first lead of the game with a jumper from LeeAnne Wirth at the 9:23 mark of the second quarter. The Bulldogs held Wyoming to 23.1 percent shooting in the second period and outscored the Cowgirls 14-8. GU finished the period on a 5-0 run to take a 29-24 lead at the break.
 
A 54.5 percent shooting performance in the third period put the Zags up by 11 (45-34), and GU extended its lead to as many as 17 in the final period. With 7:15 to go, Gonzaga led 55-38, but an 8-0 Wyoming run over the next three minutes whittled the lead down to single digits (55-46). Two-and-a-half minutes later, the Cowgirls cut it to seven (59-52), but Loera made all six of her free throws down the stretch and the Zags came up with multiple defensive stops to seal the 65-54 win.
 
Wyoming was led by Tereza Vitulova with 14 points and six rebounds while Quinn Weidemann chipped in 10 points.
 
Gonzaga returns to the floor Friday, Dec. 20 as it welcomes 20/17 Missouri State to the McCarthey Athletic Center at 6 p.m. The game will be broadcast locally on SWX; for up-to-date game information, visit GoZags.com