Beavers Hand Utes First Home Loss
January 23, 2016 | Women's Basketball
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – Senior guard Jamie Weisner scored 23 points to lead the No. 8/11 Oregon State women's basketball team to a 62-53 win over Utah Friday evening at the Huntsman Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.
“I loved our defense tonight,” said Oregon State head coach Scott Rueck. “I thought that was the key for us. Even when we had some droughts offensively they were struggling to score on us, and they had a tough time until the very end. Road wins in this conference are gold, and they're always tough, just like this one.”
Oregon State (15-3, 6-1 Pac-12) is the first team to hand the Utes (12-6, 4-3) a loss at the Huntsman Center this season. The Beavers held Utah to 27.5 percent shooting on the evening, as the Utes put up their second-lowest scoring total of the year. Utah entered the evening averaging 70.2 points per contest.
Weisner hit 7 of her 17 shot attempts and all six of her free throws to notch her fifth 20-point game of the season and the 20th of her collegiate career. Junior Sydney Wiese made her return from injury in the game, coming off the bench for the first time in her career to finish with 12 points on 3-for-6 shooting.
Senior Ruth Hamblin set a season-high with eight blocks and pulled down six rebounds. Fellow senior Deven Hunter led Oregon State with eight rebounds, while sophomore Marie Gulich came off the bench to finish with seven points and seven rebounds.
The Oregon State bench outscore Utah's reserves 21-5 in the game, and the Beavers held an 11-3 edge in assists. OSU held Utah to just a single 3-pointer in the game and forced the Utes into 14 turnovers.
Utah jumped out to an 8-3 lead to start the game, but the Beavers would answer by scoring 20-straight points to take their first lead of the game. Oregon State held the Utes without a point for a stretch of over seven minutes, as it jumped out to a 15-point lead.
Utah would cut into the lead before the break, as the Beavers took a 31-23 advantage into the intermission. Weisner put up 14 points in the opening 20-minutes of play.
The teams went back and forth for the first seven minutes of the third quarter, before the Beavers made a run to extend the lead to 16. Utah would make a late run to get the deficit back to single-digits, but Oregon State would hang on to take the win by nine.
The Beavers will head to the other side of the Rockies on Sunday for a matchup with Colorado in Boulder.
Tickets for all Oregon State home games can be purchased at Beavertickets.com.
