SAN DIEGO – Utilizing a balanced offensive attack and a solid defensive effort, the Santa Clara men's basketball team ended its two-game road trip on a high note.

Nate Kratch scored 17 points and Jared Brownridge added 12 to lead the Broncos to a 65-53 victory against San Diego Saturday in a West Coast Conference contest at the Jenny Craig Pavilion.  

Kai Healy and KJ Feagin each scored 11 points for the Broncos (6-12, 2-4), who claimed their first road win of the season by shooting 51 percent from the floor and holding the Toreros to 38 percent, including 6-for-25 (24 percent) from the behind the 3-point line.

Brett Bailey had a career-high 22 points to lead the Toreros (5-10, 0-4), who lost their fourth-straight game.

Santa Clara went exclusively with a zone defense in the second half and it paid off. The Toreros went scoreless for a stretch of 6:17 beginning with less than 4 minutes gone in the period.

While the Broncos only scored seven points in that time frame, the momentum shifted entirely to the road team, which built its largest lead of the game.

Five straight points from freshman Matt Hauser made it 50-36 with 9:12 remaining. Henrik Jadersten fed him driving to the basket and on the next possession the freshman forward knocked the ball off a missed shot back out to Hauser, who nailed a 3-pointer from the right wing.

Two minutes later, Brownridge hit a 3-pointer from top of the key, just his second of the game, with the shot clock running down to keep the lead at 14. The junior guard was an efficient 5-for-7 from the floor with five rebounds and no turnovers in 34 minutes of action.  

Feagin played 37 minutes, but was only 3-for-10 from the field, though he did have three assists.

"Our guys did a good job of coming out and controlling the pace," Santa Clara head coach Kerry Keating said. "It was not a great shooting night for our backcourt. KJ struggled and Jared didn't do much in the second half, but was such a threat he opened it up for other guys. I thought he did a really good job of becoming a presence without touching the ball."

Healy was a beneficiary, scoring eight of the team's first 11 points in the second half. Hauser scored all nine of his points in the second half and was part of the key play with 2 minutes to go. He launched a 3-pointer with the shot clock running down, but it was off target and Emmanuel Ndumanya, making his fourth-straight start at center, tipped it in to the right of the rim, giving the Broncos a 59-47 lead with 2:17 left in the game.

"That was probably the play of the game," Keating said. "Hauser shot the ball too soon on the countdown [of the shot clock] and Emannuel's presence of mind. He got that at the buzzer and tipped it in to protect the three-possession lead."

Bailey, who connected on 9 of 16 field goals, kept the Toreros within striking distance. He posted a pair of conventional 3-point plays within a 40-second span to cut the deficit to 61-53 with less than a minute left in the game.

The Broncos, the second-best free-throw shooting team in the WCC, struggled from the free-throw line, connecting only 12 of 21 attempts in the game, but Kratch and Feagin were each able to hit a pair in the final 44 seconds.

San Diego's leading scorer Duda Sanadze, who sat out Thursday's game against San Francisco due to an illness, was held to three points on 1 of 7 field goal attempts in only 13 minutes of action.

The game was tied four times in the first 14 minutes before the Broncos exerted some control by scoring 10 of 12 points.

Kratch hit 5 of his first 6 field goal attempts and his hook shot in the paint made it 21-all with 6:21 left in the first half. Brownridge added a jumper a minute later and then Healy and Feagin nailed back to back 3-pointers to give Santa Clara a 29-23 lead with 3:34 on the clock.

After not reaching double figures in the last five games, Kratch had eight points in the first 8 minutes of the game. He and Brownridge combined to score 17 of the team's first 23 points.

"Obviously what Nate in the first half set the tone and we were looking for him on slips [to the basket] down low," Keating said.

The Broncos lost at BYU Thursday and had dropped each of the previous two road games by three points or fewer.

"The guys did what they had to do to get the split this week," Keating said. "Road wins are hard to come by. I'm glad to go home with a win."

The Broncos face the Pepperdine Waves Thursday at Leavey Center. Tipoff is set for 7 p.m.

Notes: Jared Brownridge (1,431) needs six more points to move from 16th to 15th on the school's career scoring list. Bud Ogden (1,437/1965-69) is currently 15th … with three assists, KJ Feagin moved from 11th to 10th on the school's all-time freshman list (70). He passed Brandon Clark, who had 68 assists in 2011-12 … Kai Healy (11 points) scored in double figures for the third time this season, including second since he was inserted into the starting lineup on Dec. 5 … Matt Hauser (nine points) scored nine or more points for the fourth time in the last five games … the Broncos posted eight steals, their second-highest total of the season. They had nine vs. Boston College (Nov. 29) … the San Diego coaching staff features a pair of former Broncos. Lamont Smith, a former assistant coach at Santa Clara (2007-08), is in his first season as head coach. In addition, assistant coach Sam Scholl spent the previous eight seasons in the same role with the Broncos.

The San Diego Series: The series began in 1953 and Santa Clara now leads 44-35. The series has been evenly matched in recent years. The teams split a pair of meetings in each of the last two seasons. Santa Clara captured both meetings in 2012-13 and San Diego won the two the year before.