Cotton, Gophers have their way vs. Cal Poly

Leah Cotton has been effective coming off the bench this season for the Gophers women's basketball team. Given a chance to start Sunday, her performance hardly dropped off.

Cotton scored 17 points in her second career start, helping the Gophers to a 66-52 victory over Cal Poly on Sunday night before an announced 2,537 at Williams Arena.

Cotton started in place of injured junior guard Kiara Buford, the Gophers' leading scorer at 16.6 points per game. She suffered a right ankle injury during Saturday's practice and is said to be day-to-day.

"I think Leah is one of those types of players that [whether] she's starting or coming off the bench, she's going to play as hard as she can every single game," Gophers senior guard China Antoine said. "So having her out there wasn't any different than having her coming off the bench. It just gave us a little spark a little earlier. Ki's a big asset to our team. Having her out, we all knew we had to step up."

Cotton -- at 15.6 points per game the second-leading scorer this season for the Gophers (7-4) -- shot 5-for-10 from the floor and 7-for-9 from the free-throw line Sunday.

Rachel Clancy's three-pointer at the first-half buzzer put Cal Poly (2-5) within 35-33, ending a first half that saw 15 lead changes. But the Gophers dominated the second half 31-19, as the Mustangs shot only 8-for-33 (24.2 percent) from the floor after the break.

"I think our team really gutted it out," Gophers coach Pam Borton said. "We did a great job on the boards. We did a great job being aggressive and getting ourselves to the free-throw line. I thought everybody stepped up on our team and did just a little bit extra."

Brianna Mastey scored 12 points and Antoine 11 for the Gophers, who also saw Katie Loberg return from injury after missing the previous two games. The sophomore forward had eight points and five rebounds in 16 minutes.

Clancy finished with 24 points for Cal Poly.