SANTA ANA - The Dons opened Orange Empire Conference competition tonight losing to visiting Saddleback College 86-77. The loss drops the Dons to 6-11 on the season on 0-1 in the OEC while Saddleback improves to 10-9 overall and 1-1 in conference.

The Gauchos scored the game's first five points before building a first half lead as large as 12 points as they held leads of 18-6 and 20-8 nearly 11 minutes into the game. But the Dons would cut into the Gauchos lead, using an 18-8 run to pull within two points at 28-26.

That run was capped off with a Kylie Rodriguez layup with 3:29 left in the half. Ultimately, Saddleback would take a 38-31 lead into the break.

The second half opened with an 8-4 run by the Dons, capped off again by a Rodriguez layup, pulling SAC within three at 42-39. Just minutes later, the Dons would find themselves within one at 44-43 on back-to-back layups by Tianna Buford and Rodriguez.

However, the next six points belonged to Saddleback as the Gauchos began to pull away before building their largest lead of the game at 68-52 with just under eight minutes left in the game.

The Dons wouldn't give in easily as they began to chip away at Saddleback's lead with Rodriguez and Alysia Gamboa accounting for SAC's next 20 points. At one point during the duo's run, the Dons pulled within five at 73-68 with less than two minutes left in the game.

But Saddleback proved to be too much as the Gauchos wouldn't let the Dons any closer than seven points for the remainder of the game before winning by nine.

Rodriguez led all scorers in the loss with 31 points while Gamboa added 17 points. Rodriguez had another game-high with 11 rebounds. Saddleback got the majority of its offense from three players, led by Emily Cox with 25 points. Deja Brooks and Shatiana Daniels each scored 22 points for the Gauchos.

Both teams were fairly even shooting the ball with the Dons shooting 43.9% from the field to 43.6% by the Gauchos. The Dons were 74% from the free-throw line to 74.4% by the Gauchos. But one of the biggest differences in the game came from behind the three-point line with the Gauchos hitting six shots from distance while the Dons were held without a three for the entire game.