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Provo • With two tough conference opponents looming, a loss Thursday by the BYU women's basketball team would have been a real stumble.

But a big late comeback, capped by a midcourt game-winner by senior star Lexi Rydalch, gave BYU (21-4, 13-1 West Coast Conference) a 65-62 victory over San Francisco.

USF (14-10, 5-8 WCC) tied the game at 62 when Taylor Proctor made a pair of free throws with six seconds remaining. But Rydalch, the league's all-time leading scorer, then crossed half-court and banked in a 3-pointer with 1 second on the clock for the win.

"I just let it fly. We practice half-court shots after practice and we always bet Jamba Juice on it," said Rydalch, who finished with 27 points. "We call it a Jamba shot and that's what everyone was yelling after I made it."

"Lexi's one of the best players in the country. She obviously took over and hit a shot there at the end," Dons coach Jennifer Azzi said.

Proctor also had 27 points for the visitors and, with 16 coming in the first quarter, carried San Francisco to an early double-digit advantage.

That cushion lasted for a long time for the Dons, who lost at home to the Cougars 66-57 on Jan. 9. Entering the fourth quarter up by nine, USF got a bucket from Michaela Rakova and a 3-point play by Proctor to finish a 7-1 run and make the score 58-44 with 6:32 left in the game.

"San Francisco's a scary team in our league. They've lost three games in overtime and now this one," said BYU coach Jeff Judkins, whose team will host Santa Clara on Saturday and San Diego next week. "They've got a good shot to do what they did last year and get into the [conference tournament] finals."

The comeback for BYU began with four free throws from Makenzi Pulsipher, who finished with 13 points and six steals. Kalani Purcell, who had 17, then hit medium range jumpers at the 5:07 and 4:08 marks to make make the score 58-52.

Purcell then tipped a USF pass and converted the turnover with a fastbreak layup, with 2:32 remaining, to trim the lead to four. Free throws from Rydalch and Pulsipher tied the game at the 1:13 mark.

San Francisco retook the lead with a Proctor shot to make the score 60-58 before Rydalch drained a 3-pointer with 41 seconds left for a one-point Cougars' lead.

A Pulsipher free throw at with 18 seconds on the clock set the stage for the big shots by Proctor and Rydalch at the end of the game.

"I've got to give my team a lot of credit. Tonight was not one of our better games. It was one of their better games, for sure," Judkins said. "The timeout came and I told them, 'We've got to defend.' To go on a run like that defensively, that was the game." —

Storylines

R BYU got the game-winner when senior Lexi Rydalch banked in a half-court shot with a second left to break a 62-all tie.

• Rydalch and USF's Taylor Proctor both had 27 points. Proctor scored 16 points in the first quarter.

• The Dons led 58-44 with 6:32 remaining, but the Cougars scored the game's next 14 points over a five- minute stretch.