The Oregon State Women’s basketball team fell 87-63 to the No. 2 ranked Stanford Cardinal at Gill Coliseum on Friday night.

After trailing by nine points at the break, the Beavers came out hot in the second half and cut the lead to 45-41 with 5:34 remaining in the third quarter. From this point on, however, it was all downhill for the home team.

The No.2 ranked Stanford Cardinal, who now hold a 13-0 record in PAC-12 play and have won their last 14 games, responded to the scare by going on a remarkable 31-8 run over the next 10 minutes of game time, essentially putting Oregon State to bed.

“Basketball is a game of runs,” said Cardinal junior guard Haley Jones. “We knew we weren’t playing our best so we just kinda locked in, huddled up, we knew what we gotta do and I think people just performed.”

In addition to out-rebounding Oregon State 37-29, the Cardinal also held the Beavers to just nine assists. Considering OSU’s style of play and their pass-heavy offense, this was a significant factor.

“They made us go play one-on-one and try to score against them,” said Oregon State head coach Scott Rueck. “They did a good job switching, denying, and then you’re looking around and nobody’s open. I mean, the margin for error is so small, and the windows are so short, that if you miss it it’s over, and now you’re stuck with the basketball.”

Stanford senior guard Lexie Hull led all scorers with 21 points Friday night.  Off the bench, junior Guard Hannah Jump added 13 for the Cardinal, and junior Haley Jones put up 13 points and 10 boards.

Oregon State freshman guard Talia von Oelhoffen led the Beavers with 16 points off of a 7-13 shooting performance, and also added 3 assists. Oregon State junior forward Taya Corosdale was the only other Beaver in double figures, with 11 points and nine rebounds.

With the conclusion of Friday night’s game, the Beavers have now faced five straight top-25 opponents, going 1-4 in that stretch.  Despite recent results, coach Rueck praises his team for their improvement over the last few weeks, and makes his case for Oregon State to be amongst the field of 64 in the NCAA tournament come mid-March.

“As far as talent and ability and the way that we’re playing, I don’t think anyone would really want to see us in the tournament,” said Rueck.  “Which tells me we’re probably a tournament team.  You know I look at our schedule, due to makeup games we missed [playing] Utah here, we missed [playing] Arizona State here, and we missed [playing] at  Cal.  Certainly not going to sit here and tell you of course we win all those games, but I’d say we’d probably be favored in all those games. You know, which would help our record.  So I think it’s another year where the committee has to be savvy and they have to think outside the box, they have to look at everybody’s story.”

With the loss, Oregon State drops to 12-10 overall on the season and 5-7 in conference play.  Up next, the Beavers will host the Cal Golden Bears on Sunday at Gill Coliseum. Tip-off time is scheduled for noon.