After five straight losses, Taylor Lilley had seen enough.
On Saturday, the senior guard scored a career-best 36 points en route to the Ducks’ 85-77 win over USC in Los Angeles.
It was the first ever win for Oregon (13-8, 4-5) at the Galen Center. The Women of Troy, meanwhile, saw a five-game winning streak come to an end and now stand at 7-2 in conference play.
“(The team) did a terrific job,” head coach Paul Westhead said. “I’m very proud of them … when you’re losing, it’s not easy to come out and play with a lot of fire, so it was a nice turnaround for us.”
The Ducks got off to a quick start, as Lilley and senior guard Micaela Cocks hit two quick threes to give Oregon a 6-4 lead. It was a back-and-forth affair between the two teams until consecutive threes by USC’s Heather Oliver and Ashley Corral gave the Women of Troy a 21-17 lead.
Lilley responded with her third and forth threes of the game, and had 21 points at halftime to give the Ducks a narrow 38-35 advantage. Unlike past performances, Oregon was crashing the boards with 18 in the first half alone.
“They were well aware that if they could get their rebounding to improve, the other parts of our game, our shooting, our running and our full-court defense, are pretty good,” Westhead said.
Though Lilley had carried the Ducks to a lead at the half, it was clear that more players would have to step up for Oregon to pull out a win. Junior forward Victoria Kenyon did just that, scoring seven points in just over five minutes to start the second half.
“She did a good job,” Westhead said. “She was one of the examples of players who said, ‘we’re not going to let people push us around inside. We’re going to get rebounds, we’re going to block out.’ She made a couple of timely shots, too.”
Kenyon’s outburst sparked a 10-0 run for the Ducks to give them a 61-48 lead with just under 14 minutes remaining. USC would never fully recover.
Things did get interesting when sophomore guard Nia Jackson picked up her fourth and fifth fouls with seven minutes left and the Ducks holding a 76-61 lead. At this point, Westhead began to feel a bit nervous.
“I felt good about the game until Nia went out,” Westhead said. “That means Micaela has to play the whole last seven minutes as a point guard, after she’s been playing thirty-plus minutes to start with, so she really had to gut it out.”
Cocks did play the rest of the game, and USC never truly found a way back into the game. Two free throws cut the lead to 76-63, where it stayed for nearly four minutes before Cocks finally hit a jumper. The deficit was simply too much to overcome for the Women of Troy, and the Ducks went on to win 85-77.
“We really stuck together and we tried to bring the energy back in this game,” Lilley said. “That’s what we did, and we executed very well.”
Lilley’s nine three-pointers set a new school mark and tied a Pacific-10 Conference record. It was just that kind of game for Lilley, as her shot was falling from the very beginning of the game.
“She was spectacular,” Westhead said. “She was just catching and shooting; she was on fire right from the get-go.”
Cocks chipped in 24 points, while Kenyon added 10 points and eight rebounds. As a team, the Ducks shot 41.4 percent from the field, and 48 percent from three-point range. They also totaled 42 rebounds and gave up 49, a noticeable improvement from past games.
“Ultimately, we were just so good on the boards defensively that we were able to get the ball and get it out,” Lilley said. “(That) really opened the court up as far as on the offensive end.”
Corral led USC with 22 points, while sophomore guard Briana Gilbreath totaled 18 points, 12 rebounds, and five assists. Junior center Kari LaPlante added 18 points and 15 rebounds, but USC shot just 34.8 percent from the field and 24 percent from behind the arc.
There were 13 lead changes and seven ties throughout the game, but USC never led by more than four and never led in the second half. In the end, Oregon’s desperation for a win simply wore down the Women of Troy.
“Pretty much any time we lose, we really take it to heart, and we always want to change things” Lilley said. “In this game, we went out on the floor and we took care of business.”
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Lilley ties Pac-10 three-point record as Ducks blitz USC
Daily Emerald
January 30, 2010
Jack Hunter
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