Cicely Oaks is well aware teams are going to make runs.
And as she also knows, teams have turned second-half deficits into wins at Oregon’s expense.
So it was no surprise Sunday that Oregon seniors Oaks and Eleanor Haring stepped up to halt an Oregon State run and secure the 70-63 win Sunday with poised play in the game’s final minutes.
Haring scored 12 of her 16 points in the second half and Oaks had 12 points. Combine their efforts with a breakthrough performance by point guard Micaela Cocks with 14 points and Oregon had the win it’s been looking for.
As UCLA and USC visit this weekend, Oregon faces two teams they held halftime leads against in Los Angeles, but lost the games to in the second half. With the Oregon State game a notch in the win column, Oregon players are confident heading into the second half of Pacific-10 Conference play.
“We won a game, so it doesn’t matter if it’s Oregon State or whoever it is, as long as we got over the hump,” Oaks said. “I think we’re just going to be happy with that, but we know that we’re going to have a lot more close games. Every Pac-10 game is going to be close. You’re not really going to blow anybody out in the Pac-10.”
“It was very important to close a game out – finally,” said Oregon’s leading scorer Haring, who averages 13.7 points per game.
UCLA (12-11, 6-5 Pac-10) is up first on Thursday at 7 p.m. and enters on a three-game winning streak – all wins by six points or fewer. Oregon (11-9, 3-7) led 37-31 at halftime on Jan. 7, but in the second half, UCLA used a 14-7 run to take a 45-44 lead. After trading baskets, UCLA pushed its lead to 57-53 and survived a late Oregon rally.
Versatile UCLA guard Noelle Quinn found her shooting touch and proceeded to pour in 16 of her 21 points in the second half. The key to slowing her down is playing close defense and taking away any extra space, Oaks said.
Oregon’s bench – dwindling by the game – is receiving a boost from the improved play of back-up center Jamie Hawkins. With guard Taylor Lilley sitting out Sunday, Oregon only had two regulars left to go to in Cocks and Hawkins.
Cocks’ play allowed coach Bev Smith to lessen the load on starting point guard Tamika Nurse, who spent a team high 43 minutes on the court in last Wednesday’s overtime loss to Oregon State.
The fatigue may have been most evident in her eight turnovers, but also some untimely miscues in overtime.
The sophomore Nurse, who has developed into a dependable starting point guard after converting from the shooting guard position out of high school, saw her minutes cut to 25 Sunday in her two-point, five-assist and five-turnover performance.
Cocks has shown flashes of her potential and Sunday played 29 minutes. Along with her 14 points, she dished out three assists, had a rebound and only three turnovers.
Late in the second half, she made a game-sealing three-pointer in her first Civil War match-up inside Gill Coliseum.
“She’s very fundamental,” Smith said. “Those shots that she’s made, she’s probably made 100,000 of those in practice.”
Hawkins, a fifth-year senior who transferred from Boise State, has had seven points and seven rebounds in two of Oregon’s last three games.
“She just looks very relaxed offensively, taking what the defense gives her rather than trying to create something, and I think when she lets the game come to her, then there’s no pressure and she just plays instinctively,” Smith said.
Against Oregon State Sunday, Hawkins showed off a mid-range game to complement her consistent work on the boards.
“I think with everybody you just need kind of that one game just to really cement it to yourself that it’s possible to do and you can get all these moves,” forward Carolyn Ganes said. “You can do all the things that you’ve been doing in practice all year.”
The efforts of Hawkins and Ganes in starter Jessie Shetters’ absence due to a stress fracture in her back have alleviated the pressure on leading scorer Haring, who is third on the team in minutes per game at 27.6.
Ganes had 14 points Sunday on 6-of-8 shooting and 20 points in her first start in Shetters’ place in Oregon’s first meeting with UCLA.
Oregon’s posts have another challenge with UCLA and will be pressed to keep 6-foot-4-inch posts Lindsey Pluimer and Chinyere Ibekwe off the boards.
“We’re going to have to limit our turnovers – get the job done on the boards and see where we can go from there,” Haring said.
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