Oregon State
California
Late Surge Lifts No. 23 Cal Past OSU, 72-63
January 04, 2014 | Women's Basketball
BERKELEY, Calif. – Jamie Weisner led the Beavers with 22 points and 11 rebounds and OSU dominated on the glass, but No. 23 Cal turned it on in the last five minutes and was able to pull away from the Oregon State women's basketball team on Friday night, 72-63, in front of 1,643 in Haas Pavilion.
The Beavers (8-5, 0-1) battled back from an eight-point second-half deficit to take a 47-45 lead on a Sydney Wiese 3-pointer with 7:27 to go, but after a Deven Hunter free throw extended that edge by a point two minutes later, the Golden Bears (9-3, 1-0) closed the game on a 27-15 run to fend off OSU's upset bid.
It was Oregon State's second straight game against a 2013 Final Four participant and the second of the back-to-back-to-back ranked opponents the Beavers are facing, just the third time OSU has confronted such a stretch in program history.
“Cal had a lot of people step up and hit big shots,” Oregon State head coach Scott Rueck said. “This team is used to winning and they proved that down the stretch. We just made too many mistakes to get a win against a good team on the road.”
The double-double was the seventh of Weisner's career and third this season. She's scored at least 10 in 10 straight games, a streak not surpassed by an OSU player in four years. Sydney Wiese added 17 of her own on 5-of-14 shooting.
“Jamie is a warrior and she's going to bring that every night,” Rueck said. “We had a lot of good performances tonight. I thought in the first half Syd and Jamie needed some help from some teammates and got that in the second half, just not quite enough.”
Weisner was aided on the glass with 10-rebound performances from both Hunter and Ruth Hamblin. It's the first time since 1999 that OSU has had three players each reach double figures in rebounds. As a team, Oregon State pulled down 48 to Cal's 34. That +14 margin was the Beavers' largest against a Pac-12 opponent since totaling 15 more than Washington State on Feb. 9, 2012.
OSU started out playing to its strengths and began the game by scoring 15 of its first 19 points from behind the arc, making 5-of-7. During that early spurt, the Beavers raced out to a 10-4 lead and were up 19-16 when Gabriella Hanson capped the 3-point barrage halfway through the opening stanza, but Oregon State would only convert 2-of-18 the rest of the way.
Trailing 30-25 coming out of the break, the Beavers made a concerted effort to get some production on the block. After totaling just four points in the paint in the opening 20 minutes, six of OSU's first eight in the second came from that area. The two Wiese free throws that started OSU's second-half scoring came off an aggressive drive to the rim.
“We're seeing progress there,” Rueck said of the inside game. “This is one of the most physical teams in the country. That's what they do best. I liked our flow a lot better in the second half. Ruth and Deven did a great job inside and then Bre [Brown] came in and gave us great minutes in her hometown. There were a lot of good signs, but down the stretch you have to be perfect and Cal made more plays than we did.”
Hamblin tallied five blocks and has 14 over OSU's past two games.
Brittany Boyd led the late surge for Cal. The junior point guard scored a game-high 25 while also notching seven rebounds and seven steals. She was 9-of-16 from the floor and despite entering the night successful on just 3-of-30 from 3-point range this season, Boyd was 3-of-4 against the Beavers.
Oregon State is back in action on Sunday afternoon when it makes the short journey to Stanford for a game that tips at 2 p.m. Ann Schatz and Ros Gold-Onwude will have the call on the Pac-12 Networks.
