Women's Basketball Falls to Oregon
February 27, 1999
Corvallis, Ore. - Angelina Wolvert scored a career-high 19 points and added 13 rebounds to lead the No. 18 Oregon Ducks to a hard fought 60-52 victory over Oregon State Friday night in front of 5,034 at Gill Coliseum. The win was Oregons ninth consecutive, while OSU lost for the sixth straight time.
The victory for Oregon (23-4, 14-2) pushed it back into first place in the Pac-10 Conference. The Ducks have a one-half game lead over idle UCLA. The Bruins play Saturday night at Washington.
The Ducks had to hold off pesky Oregon State (11-14, 3-13) in the second half. The Beavers trailed 32-22 at the break, but held Oregon to just .269 from the field in the second half and closed to within four points with 2:46 remaining on a Vanessa Morris free throw. Oregon was able to hold off the Beavers, thanks to hitting five of six from the line in the last 2:26.
"Our team really showed a lot of heart," OSU Head Coach Judy Spoelstra said. "We are a much less experienced team compared to Oregon, and to make a run against a team like that was impressive."
Free throws told much of the story in the game. Oregon State had chances to narrow the gap ever further in the second half, but struggled from the charity stripe, hitting just nine of 17 in the second stanza. For the game, the Beavers were just 11 of 22.
Oregon State, which never led, fell behind by as much as 13 points in the first half, and trailed by as many as 14 in the second half. The Beavers were able to charge back into the game with a 13-5 run in the latter stages of the contest.
"I talked about picking up our intensity in the halftime locker room, and I think that is how we got back into the game," Spoelstra said. "We broke the game down into five four minute quarters in the second half, and we won nearly every one."
Sissel Pierce led Oregon State with 12 points, while Vanessa Morris added 11. Lisa Bowyer scored 13 for Oregon to go along with Wolverts double-double.
The game concluded the home schedule for this season for Oregon State. Both Oregon and Oregon State travel to the Bay Area next week for a pair of games. The trip begins Thursday with OSU at California and Oregon at Stanford.
