The Oregon women, who have not won a Pacific-10 Conference game away from McArthur Court this season, play their first of two final road games this weekend starting with Washington tonight at 7 p.m. in Seattle.
“On the road’s been hard for I think every team in the Pac-10,” Oregon’s Kedzie Gunderson said. “To be able to go up there with the Pac-10 Tournament coming up is going to be a huge key for us in the sense that it is on the road. To go up there and stay focused and not get rattled is going to be big for us.”
After playing the Huskies, the Ducks have just three games left before the conference tournament, which begins on March 3.
Gunderson feels Oregon (14-10 overall, 5-9 Pac-10) can top the Huskies if its defense plays similar to Saturday, when Oregon held No. 15 Arizona State to 62 points, the Sun Devils’ third-lowest score of the season.
“We really want to focus on our defense, especially because we’ve struggled on offense this season,” she said. “Defense is our biggest strength. If we can keep them to low scoring and get some easy transition baskets, that would be good for us.”
Having already faced the Huskies at home earlier this season, this is the last time the Oregon seniors will face their rivals from the Emerald City in a regular season game. One senior the Ducks might be without tonight is Chelsea Wagner. Wagner suffered a concussion in Saturday’s game and did not practice all week. Wagner ranks second in scoring for Oregon this season.
In Wagner’s absence, Cicely Oaks and Tamika Nurse will fill in at guard alongside Kaela Chapdelaine.
Chapdelaine scored a career-high 18 points in Oregon’s win over Washington Jan. 21. She made 6 of 8 shots from the field, including five three-pointers. She added four rebounds, an assist and one blocked shot. Her scoring total is one of six career-highs achieved in that same game.
The Huskies (16-7, 9-5) are fourth place in the Pac-10 standings and haven’t lost at home often this season. Washington boasts a 10-2 record at Bank of America Arena; its last home loss was against Arizona State Jan. 28.
“Washington is a very good team and a very good team at home,” Oregon coach Bev Smith said. “They run a lot more at home and feel really comfortable doing that. We’re really going to have to focus on the tempo. Down here it was a wide-open high-scoring game that we came out on top in.”
Junior Cameo Hicks leads the Huskies in scoring this year. The starting guard from Tracy, Calif., averages an eighth-best 15.2 points per game in the
conference and holds the Huskies’ top percentage mark from the free-throw line this season. She has converted 77 percent of her charity shots.
In Saturday’s 83-75 road loss to UCLA, Hicks dropped 21 points to notch her second-straight 20-point game and sixth of the season.
Against the Bruins, Andrea Plouffe and Breanne Watson came up big for the Huskies. Plouffe chipped in 16 points and Watson ended with 11 plus 10 rebounds for her second-straight double-double.
On Thursday, Watson finished with 10 points and 10 boards to lead Washington past USC 87-79. Junior Cheri Craddock sank two three-pointers in the win. Craddock’s 37 percent shooting from beyond the arc ranks eighth in the conference this year.
The victory over USC was Daugherty’s 100th career Pac-10 win. In her 10 years of coaching Washington, Daugherty has beaten the Ducks four times at home.
In Washington’s last meeting with Oregon, Hicks scored a team-best 16-points, shooting 5 of 14 from the field. Plouffe added 13 points.
As a sophomore, Plouffe has played an integral part in coach June Daugherty’s offense this season, averaging 10.7 points and 4.4 rebounds per game.
Live coverage of tonight’s game will be aired on KSCR-1320 AM.

[email protected]