Gandy hits game-winner for WWU women’s basketball

Junior forward Kiana Gandy hit the game-winning basket with less than three seconds left in the game to lift the Western Washington University Vikings to a 64-62 victory over Hawai'i Pacific Friday, Nov. 27, in the O’ahu Women’s Basketball Thanksgiving Classic in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The Vikings went 2-0 in the O’ahu Thanksgiving Classic with wins over Chaminade (61-53) and HPU to even their season record at 3-3. Hawai'i Pacific falls to 2-4 with the loss.

Gandy scored a career-high 22 points in the victory, capping an excellent trip to Hawai'i in which she scored 40 points in the two games. Her game-winning basket with 2.4 seconds left on the clock capped a big second half in which the Vikings out-scored the Sharks 38-29. Gandy scored 16 of her 22 points in the second half, including 11 points in the decisive fourth quarter.

“Kiana hit some big shots and our posts did a great job finding her,” WWU coach Carmen Dolfo said in a news release. “We played really well together in the second half and stuck to what was working for us at both ends of the court. We were down by 13 at one point, but we stepped up and fought back.”

With the victory, Dolfo recorded her 518th career victory, tying former men’s basketball coach Brad Jackson for the most wins by a coach in WWU Athletics history.

Junior point guard Taylor Peacocke added 16 points on 8-for-20 shooting and senior center Kayla Bernsen contributed 12 points and four rebounds. Junior guard Aleisha Hathaway had a team-high 6 assists, including the dish on the game-winning basket by Gandy.

This story was originally published November 27, 2015 at 10:23 PM with the headline "Gandy hits game-winner for WWU women’s basketball."