“It’s great to be back in Gill,” said head coach Scott Rueck.
A dominant second-half performance from Oregon State forward Raegan Beers propelled the Oregon State women’s basketball team to an 85-74 victory over the Arkansas-Pine Bluff Golden Lions, Monday night at Gill Coliseum in Corvallis.
“I loved the effort in the first half to stay in reach and in the second half they came out with a big-time energy boost. A great win and a lot of good performances, I thought this was a team win as a team win gets,” said Rueck. “When you have a team that is youthful and new as us there’s a lot of unknown and I assumed there would be a lot of problem-solving.”
Beers scored 15 of her 19 points in the second half against the Golden Lions and secured 14 rebounds in the victory for the Beavers. Beers credited her teammates for her second-half performance against the Golden Lions.
“I feel like their energy rubbed off on me,” Beers said. “Their energy running up and down the court, just pressuring the ball on defense and pushing the ball on offense got us going and every one of us on the bench going.”
Oregon State guard Talia Von Oelhoffen opened the scoring for the Beavers, scoring the first points of the season on a midrange jump shot, which gave the Beavers an early 2-0 lead.
Early in the game, the Beavers started slow on both sides of the court and the Golden Lions took advantage, jumping out to a 25-15 lead at the end of the first quarter.
The Golden Lions used three-point and two-point shooting to build their early lead hitting on their first few shots in the game. Arkansas-Pine Bluff led the Beavers by as much as 11 points in the first quarter.
The Golden Lions extended their lead with a three-pointer and jump shot from guard Coriah Beck to make the score 30-17 in the second quarter. Arkansas-Pine Bluff extended their lead again in the second quarter to make the score 34-17 with a jump shot from guard Zaay Green.
The Beavers cut into the Golden Lions lead with a three-pointer from forward Timea Gardner and a layup from guard Dominika Paurova to make the score 36-25 with 3:38 to go in the first half.
Oregon State guard Kennedie Shuler hit a jump shot to cut into the Golden Lions lead to make the score 46-33 at halftime.
The Beavers roared back in the third quarter outscoring the Golden Lions 30-9 to retake the lead with a layup from guard AJ Marotte to make the score 53-52.
Oregon State guard Donovyn Hunter hit a jump shot and forward Beers hit another pair of layups to extend the Beaver lead 59-55 with 1:54 in the third quarter.
“It was really cool to be out there even on the floor with a lot minutes,” Hunter said. “So going in you can’t control whether your shot goes in, and I just told myself go out there do what I can do to help our team win.”
Rueck credited the turnaround offensively to starting three freshmen in the second half and they were Hunter, Paurova, and Schuler.
“Well, we put three freshmen on the floor to start the second half and you know I was looking at plus-minus, energy, what’s working and what isn’t working, and you just go with your gut,” Rueck said of his halftime adjustments. “Those three freshmen can really cause trouble for a defense.”
Rees hit a free throw to extend the Beavers’ lead in the fourth quarter to make the score 64-56 with 8:27 left in the game. Paurova and Gardner hit back-to-back three-pointers to extend the lead again for the Beavers to make the score 70-58.
Golden Lions guard Demetria Shephard hit a pair of free throws to cut the Oregon State lead making the score 75-72. Paurova knocked down a layup to extend the lead for the Beavers to make the score 77-74 with 1:22 left in the game.
Beers knocked down a pair of free throws and guard Lily Hansford hit a free throw of her own to extend the lead for the Beavers to make the score 80-74.
Hunter extended the lead for the Beavers on a three-point shot to make the score 83-74 with 0:30 seconds left in the game. Von Oelhoffen hit a pair of free throws to extend the lead again for the Beavers to make the score 85-74 at the end of the fourth quarter.
Green led all scorers for the Golden Lions and had 26 points and seven rebounds. Beck scored 16 points and Shephard scored 11 points in the loss to the Beavers.
Beers led all scorers for Oregon State with 19 points. Hunter scored 14 points and had six assists, and Paurova scored 13 points and had five rebounds in the win.
Up next, the Beavers play Villanova on Sunday at 1 p.m. at Gill Coliseum. The game will be televised on PAC-12 Network.
