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LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- Gonzagas fourth straight lopsided victory didnt come as easy as the final score would suggest.Jonathan Williams and Zach Collins led a balanced offense with 13 points apiece, helping the 11th-ranked Bulldogs shrug off a slow start and pull away to an 82-62 win over Quinnipiac in the first round of the AdvoCare Invitational at Disney World on Thursday night.The Bulldogs (4-0) also got 10 points each from Jordan Mathews and Josh Perkins to advance to the semifinals of the eight-team tournament.Like I told the guys, were not going to be up by 30 every game at half. Its Division I basketball, Gonzaga coach Mark Few said. Youve got to scratch and claw, and find your way through it, and I thought we did a nice job of doing that.Gonzaga used a 12-2 spurt to open a 37-25 lead late in the first half. Silas Nelsons basket put the Bulldogs up 48-35 with just under 15 minutes to go, and the closest Quinnipiac (0-3) got after that was 10. Mathews made 3-pointers on successive trips down the floor, sparking a run that enabled the Bulldogs to build the margin to 23.Not every game is going to be an easy game. Quinnipiac, they came out fighting but we fought back. We didnt let the first half dictate what was going to happen in the second half, said Collins, a 7-foot freshman forward. We executed much better in the second half. We played much better defense. ... We just fought, stayed together, didnt let it get us down and just kept rolling.Peter Kiss led Quinnipiac with 18 points and Daniel Harris added 10. The Bobcats limited Gonzagas leading scorer, 7-foot-1 Przemek Karnowski, to eight points on 4-for-10 shooting despite not having a player on the roster taller than 6-foot-9 forward Chaise Daniels.Im proud of our effort, proud of our togetherness. We have a very inexperienced group, a young group, Quinnipiac coach Tom Moore said.We come into this game, obviously, against a program like Gonzaga with a different agenda than they had to have. Were trying to find ourselves, he added. Overall, tonight was a step forward for us. We have a long way to go, a lot of things to get better at. This is a blue-blood program that we played tonight. Im really proud of our effort from start to finish.BIG PICTUREThe Bulldogs figure to get a better idea of where they are over the next two days, when they could face a ranked opponent as well as another on the verge of cracking the Top 25. Quinnipiac stayed close for 15 minutes, but mainly because Gonzaga shot 41 percent in the opening half and missed nine of 11 attempts from beyond the 3-point arc. The teams remaining in the winners bracket pose a much bigger challenge.POLL IMPLICATIONSIf the Bulldogs can win this tournament for the third time, it would bolster their argument to crack the Top 10. At the very least, picking up two quality wins would help their position as they move toward a Dec. 3 trip to No. 9 Arizona.STILL PERFECTGonzaga improved to 7-0 in the Thanksgiving tournament at Disney formerly known as the Old Spice Classic. The Bulldogs won the event in 2008 and 2012.Its been great for us. Its always given us a great barometer where were at, Few said. To get out here on the road as a group at Thanksgiving, I think it does nothing but kind of draw us even closer, and weve been working on that all year.UP NEXTGonzaga plays Florida (5-0) in the tournament semifinals Friday night.Quinnipiac faces Seton Hall (3-1) in the losers bracket.---More AP college basketball: www.collegebasketball.ap.org and https://twitter.com/AP-Top25. Cheap Green Bay Packers Jerseys .J. -- Pitcher Carl Pavano is retiring after 14 major league seasons. Cheap Packers Jerseys . 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BYUs Mary Lake is two weeks into her collegiate career and already reveling in every game.The freshman libero, the espnW player of the week, earned MVP honors last weekend at the Sports Imports D.C. Koehl Classic at Ohio State. The No. 10 Cougars (6-0) dispatched Wyoming, LIU-Brooklyn and host Ohio State, ranked 11th nationally at the time, to win the event.The 5-foot-7 Lake had 61 digs in the three matches, including 38 against the Buckeyes -- the most ever by a BYU player in a match in the rally-scoring era -- in a five-set thriller.Mary was phenomenal, Cougars coach Heather Olmstead said. She was fearless. She sees the game really well and with that, has good instincts, so she was seeing the court well and was talking and communicating. Shes such a leader in the backcourt that it calms our team down.Lakes fast start as a collegian is even more impressive given a pair of knee injuries. Coming into her final year at Californias Palm Springs High, the senior captain couldnt wait to defend the CIF Southern Section Division 2A title -- the equivalent of a state championship in the desert of Coachella Valley where she grew up.Her Indians had never won state and werent projected to do it her junior year. But a magical run propelled the No. 8 seeds to defeat the top two teams.The only word that comes to mind is surreal, she said.Then an ACL tear to her right knee ended her last high school season before it began. The first two weeks were rough, but after that, she refused to give in to the negativity.Positivity is a major part of recovery, she said. I called BYU as soon as it happened and I was afraid it would affect my scholarship, but they were super nice to me and gave me the confidence I needed so I could bounce back from it.Lake came to Provo early to finish her rehab and traveled with the Cougars on their two-week tour of China in May that included six games. She was an integral part of the lineup then. But six weeks ago, she tore thee meniscus in her right knee.ddddddddddddI was grateful it wasnt my ACL again, said Lake, who will wear a brace for the remainder of the season.The knee issues give her perspective about volleyball she didnt always have. At 5 years old, the youngest of six knew the game would be in her future. She was determined to follow her sister Melissa, a libero for the Cougars from 2008-09, into the college game.I knew I loved volleyball, but Im more grateful for it now, Lake said. The days I have tough practices I remember I could be injured and not playing at all. Its made me stronger for sure and mentally tough.One of the things I love about Mary is shes already been through a lot of adversity with that knee, Olmstead said. She found a new love for the game because it was taken away from her. Yet not even Lake could forecast this kind of beginning to her college career. The Cougars started the season in their own BYU Invitational in front of a record crowd of 4,672 and swept Utah Valley. Lake, with 12 digs in that one, has 112 to lead the team.Playing at the site of this years final four over the weekend, BYU didnt get rattled despite dropping the first two sets to the Buckeyes. The Cougars soared to a 21-2 lead in the third set, dominated the fourth and never trailed in the fifth.It was nerve-racking, said Lake, also the West Coast Conference player of the week. We didnt come out as confident as we could have been, but our confidence came and we realized we could play with them. It was crazy that we came back and won.In addition to enjoying her team, Lake also has fallen in love with BYU, where the admitted calculus junkie is majoring in math with plans to teach.I chose my school not only for the amazing volleyball program but for the school itself, she said. Im Mormon, its a great volleyball program with good people here. I visited other schools, but I knew I belonged at BYU. ' ' '