With solid contributions from Eleanor Haring and Carolyn Ganes, and a breakout performance by freshman point guard Micaela Cocks, the Oregon women’s basketball team rolled to a 70-63 victory over Oregon State on Sunday night in Corvallis, earning their first Pacific-10 Conference road win since Feb. 26, 2005.
“It’s a road win, our first one in a long time. I like the way we played and the way we gutted it out and kept strong when they made their runs,” Oregon coach Bev Smith said.
In the first half, Oregon State got on the board first with a Casey Nash jumper. But the Ducks opened their account with a lay-up from Ganes in the third minute of play.
From then on, Oregon played a fast, aggressive brand of basketball that limited Oregon’s State’s Nash to just seven points in the first half.
But the Ducks’ aggression also landed them in foul trouble early in the game, and by half time, four of Oregon’s five starters had collected two fouls each.
Senior forward Eleanor Haring spent the last ten minutes of the first half on the bench after she committed her first foul about eight minutes before half time.
In Haring’s absence, Ganes took over and led the Ducks to a 35-26 halftime lead.
The senior post finished the first half with 12 points and was 5-of-6 from the field. Ganes ended the night with 14 points and three rebounds.
The Beavers went on an early scoring run in the second half to take a slim 49-48 lead with less than seven minutes remaining in the game.
But with Nash playing timidly with four fouls, Haring found herself on a roll. She made up for her lack of minutes in the first half with 12 points on 5-of-8 shooting from the field in the second, and finished with 16 points on the night.
“When Eleanor gets going, she’s such a great player, she really draws a lot of attention from the defense, so when she’s on, she really makes life easier for us offensively,” Ganes said.
After starting point guard Tamika Nurse collected her third foul early in the second half, New Zealand native Cocks took over the point guard position for the rest of the game, and had a breakthrough performance, scoring a career-high 14 points.
“Micaela did an excellent job today, she played her heart out and that was really important for us,” Ganes said.
Nurse played 25 minutes to Cocks’ 29, but had trouble holding onto the ball.
“I think we’ve played Tamika a lot of minutes, and I also forget that that young lady is just a sophomore and trying to run the show, and I think she has played a lot of minutes and gets a little rattled and is still understanding how to take control of a game like that,” Smith said. “I think Micaela came in and did that for us tonight. She gave us some solid play.
“She didn’t do any spectacular things, but did not turn the ball over, and (managed to) get into our offense and get the ball inside.”
[email protected]