SAN FRANCISCO - Senior center Lauren Freidenberg scored a game-high 19 points and senior guard Chelsea Carlisle finished with 17 to lead the 13th-ranked UC San Diego women's basketball team to a convincing 68-47 victory over Seattle Pacific in the opening game of the CCAA/GNAC Shootout on Friday afternoon at The Swamp on the campus of San Francisco State.

UCSD looked extremely sharp in its season opener, outscoring SPU 22-6 over the final 12 minutes of the first half and then shooting a blistering 55% in the second stanza to put the game away. The Tritons (1-0) led by as many as 22 points in the game, defeating the Falcons (0-1) for the second time in the previous three meetings between the two West Region powers.

"That was a great, great win for us today," fifth-year head coach Charity Elliott said. "We didn't shoot particularly well from the perimeter, but Lauren really made up for it with her play inside. That was just a big win for our program as Seattle Pacific is always so tough to beat."

UCSD shot just under 44% overall, converting 29-of-66 shots from the field, while Seattle Pacific finished at 41% after hitting 19-of-46. Neither team shot well from the three-point line as the Tritons hit just 3-of-20, 15%, and the Falcons were 3-for-12, 25%. UCSD held a commanding 43-27 advantage on the glass and scored 24 points off 26 SPU turnovers.

Freidenberg finished 9-of-14 from the field and also hauled down a game-high nine rebounds for UCSD, while Carlisle converted 8-of-13 and tallied eight boards, three assists and two steals. Freidenberg and Carlisle combined to score 36 of the Tritons' 68 points in the game.

Aubree Callen scored 17 points on 7-of-10 shooting to lead the Falcons, while Katie Benson finished with 14 points and seven rebounds.

SPU jumped out to an early 14-9 lead following a layup by Benson and a Callen jumper, but Nicole Anderson-Jew hit a pair of threes sandwiched around an Erin Dautremont tip-in as UCSD came back to take a 17-14 advantage with 10 and a half minutes left in the first half.

Four straight points gave the lead back to the Falcons, but it was all Tritons from that point forward as UCSD closed the half on a 14-2 run to take a 31-20 cushion at the break. Freidenberg and Carlisle did the bulk of the damage for the Tritons, combining to score 10 of the 14 points during the spurt.

SPU scored the first eight points of the second half to pull with three at 31-28, but UCSD answered with another huge run, outscoring the Falcons 23-5 over the next nine minutes to pull away. It was Freidenberg and Carlisle doing most of the scoring for the Tritons once again, as the duo accounted for 16 of the team's points during the decisive stretch.

UCSD held Seattle Pacific without a point for a span of nearly six minutes during the run as the Tritons' lead ballooned from six to 21 with 8:03 left to play.

A Freidenberg jumper gave UCSD its biggest lead of the game at 66-44 with 2:49 remaining and SPU would get no closer than 19 the rest of the way.

UCSD improved to just 2-11 all-time against Seattle Pacific with the victory. The Tritons defeated the Falcons 82-80 in double overtime in December 2009, but SPU won the last meeting between the two teams, recording a 75-66 victory at the SPU Sodexo Classic in November of last season.

The Tritons will face Western Washington on day two of the CCAA/GNAC Shootout on Saturday at 1:00 p.m. at Cal State East Bay's Pioneer Gym.