No. 11 Oregon State Women’s Basketball and No. 9 UCLA Bruins delivered an absolute stunner of a matchup on all fronts in Gill Coliseum Friday night.
Ending with multiple baskets from each team within the last 10 seconds, and sealed with a three by Junior Talia von Oelhoffen on the buzzer, the Beavers got the win.
“First off, the general theme was, that’s one of the best basketball games I’ve ever watched,” said Head Coach Scott Rueck.
Down by seven with two and a half minutes left, Oregon State went on a seven to zero scoring run that tied it with a minute left. The record-breaking Oregon State crowd was on their feet behind their team until the very end.
“Skies the limit, we saw that today. Who would ever count this team out now,” Rueck said. “I couldn’t be more proud of them, tonight was just pure fun and I don’t know if it was full tonight, but my goodness that was an unbelievable crowd.”
OSU students beat the previous student attendance record at a OSU Women’s basketball game by more than 1000 according to the Women’s Basketball Instagram.
The game’s energy was set from the very beginning by UCLA, whose man-to-man defense gave OSU barely any room to move with the ball. However, this made the game physical from both ends. UCLA ended with 22 personal fouls to OSU’s 14, giving Oregon State 22 points in total of free throws while the Bruins had only 15.
Despite the intensity of the game, the only technical foul of the game came from Rueck for arguing with a referee.
Beaver star sophomore Raegan Beers went down with a head injury that left her on the floor for an extended period. She was out for the rest of the game which gave way for UCLA sophomore Lauren Betts an almost free pass in the paint. She was 11 of 15 from the field and scored 24 points to lead her team. UCLA outscored OSU 32-22 in the paint.
“Obviously, the first half we had a lot of adversity, Raegan goes down. From that moment we all knew we had to step up especially for each other and for Raegan specifically,” OSU’s Timea Gardiner said.
Beers going down meant that the Beaver bench needed to step up and did they ever. Oregon State had the advantage of 41, to UCLA’s 10 points, off the bench. OSU’s Gardiner scored 21 points off the bench, sinking three triples and was perfect on her eight free throws.
“We were trying to go to Timea, I know how great of a shooter she is. I mean, three for four, it seemed like she was making everything,” Oelhoffen said.
Both teams shot over 45% from the field in the game and over 80% from the line. The true difference came in the three-point percentage, OSU shot 58% from three while UCLA fell short with only 26%.
“They shot 58 percent from the three. That’s the difference in the game, our mentality. We made too many mistakes on the defensive end of the floor,” said UCLA Head Coach Cori Close.
The OSU women’s team looks to lengthen its win streak to seven games in another upcoming matchup with fellow Pac-12 team, the University of Southern California Trojans, in Gill Coliseum on Feb. 18 at noon.