Beavers struggle to come back after a slow start, lose to Colorado Buffaloes

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Shivani Jinger

Head coach of the OSU women’s basketball team, Scott Rueck, looks over his teams play during the second quarter of their game against Colorado University in Gill Coliseum. Rueck’s Beavers need to maintain a winning culture heading into the coming PAC-12 Tournament.

The Oregon State Women’s Basketball team fell to 11-12 in the season with six games remaining following a 67-48 loss to the Colorado Buffaloes in a physical battle at home. 

Colorado held the Beavers to six points scored in the first quarter. 

This made it hard for the Beavers to bounce back as it set the momentum for the rest of the game. 

The Buffaloes made a strong start, scoring 21 in the first quarter, while the Beavers had productive gameplay in the second quarter with freshman Lily Hansford making one of her first showings at Gill Coliseum as a Beaver. 

This had the fans cheering as she contributed to points on the board for the Beavers. 

“At some point, we had all the freshmen out there,” said head coach Scott Rueck.

The freshmen getting experience in games and getting shots up will benefit them and the Beavers in the long run during the upcoming PAC-12 Conference Tournament in Las Vegas. 

In an attempt to get the game going and an effort to diminish the lead the Buffaloes had over them, the Beavers tried to be effective on the defensive and offensive sides of the ball. The Beavers and Buffaloes both scored 14 field goals in the second quarter. 

In the end, it came down to the rebounds, which the Beavers were not able to successfully get a handle on to get the game on the track that they wanted. This left the score to be 20-35 at the end of the half with the Buffaloes leading

Back from the half and going into the third quarter, Colorado was more effective as they managed to have a three-point advantage after the third in points scored. 

The fourth quarter was the same with the Beavers not being able to minimize the lead the Buffaloes had the entire game, which contributed towards their lopsided loss. 

“This is a very physical team and the game was played very physically, and because of that, they were able to dominate,” Rueck said in the post-game conference. 

There were plenty of times when the Buffalo players stole the ball from the Beavers’ hands, which made the game physical and also allowed them to score in the fast break against the Beavers. 

This style of play for Colorado made it difficult for the Beavers to keep up with speed as well. 

“They were a more aggressive team pretty much all day,” said Rueck post-game. 

The Beavers will be heading on the road for their four upcoming games in Los Angeles and Washington. They play the No. 14 UCLA Bruins in Los Angeles on Friday, Feb. 10 at 5 p.m.

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