Oregon shooting guard Chelsea Wagner moved into ninth place on the school’s career list for three-pointers made (70) in Saturday’s game at Gill Coliseum.
CORVALLIS — The Oregon women’s basketball team was in search of a complete game on both the offensive and defensive ends.
Saturday’s Civil War was a great time for that to happen.
Oregon captured its first Pacific-10 Conference road victory of the season with an 82-58 drubbing of Oregon State in front of 3,752 fans at Gill Coliseum.
The Ducks improved their record to 10-4 overall and 3-2 in the Pac-10, while the Beavers (4-10, 0-5) suffered their worst home Civil War defeat since a 72-47 loss in 1986.
“It was great,” Oregon guard Chelsea Wagner said of the team’s all-around game. “We feed off our defense, and we know offensively it will come.”
The Ducks’ offense showed up early and stayed for the entire game as Oregon shot 55 percent in the contest — including 58 percent in the second half.
Oregon’s 82 points was the highest output of the season.
Oregon senior Andrea Bills — coming off a four-point performance against UCLA last week — led the Ducks in scoring with 17 on 7 of 10 shooting. Bills missed her first three shots of the game before connecting on her last seven.
Her second field goal, a layin with 14 minutes and 57 seconds left to play in the first half, gave her 1,001 career point. She became the 17th Oregon player to reach the 1,000 point mark.
Three other players for the Ducks recorded double-digits in points.
Wagner, after tying a career-high in points (21) against UCLA last game, added 14 points on 4 of 9 shooting from behind the arc, moving her into ninth place on Oregon’s career three-point list with 70.
The junior also held Oregon State’s leading scorer, Shannon Howell to 6 of 19 shooting for the game.
“I think we really stayed true to our defensive game plan,” Oregon head coach Bev Smith said. “(Shannon) Howell is certainly someone who is in your attention, and I thought that Chelsea did a really good job of getting her under wraps.”
Oregon senior Cathrine Kraayeveld tallied her ninth-straight game scoring in double-digits with 13 on 5 of 11 shooting. Kraayeveld also added six rebounds, two blocks and three steals.
After giving up 151 points to UCLA and USC in their last two games, the Ducks used the short week of practice to re-focus their defense efforts.
As a result, the Ducks held Oregon State to 39 percent shooting for the game and forced 15 turnovers,
resulting in 17 points.
Bills also tied a career-high with four blocked shots and also grabbed seven rebounds.
As a team, Oregon held the Beavers to 13 rebounds the entire second half.
“(Defense is a focus) in all of our games,” Bills said. “Especially after our last two games where we slacked off a bit.”
Oregon sophomore Cicely Oaks came off the bench and recorded three steals to spark a 16-2 run by the Ducks early in the second half, putting the game out of reach for good. The Ducks pushed the lead to as many as 31 by outscoring the Beavers 34-9 during a 10 minute stretch in the second half.
“We can’t let our opponents score 82 points per game,” Howell said. “Our main goal is to keep our
opponents under 70.”
This season, Oregon State is 0-9 when they allow more than 70 points.
One of the biggest improvements for the Ducks was the number of turnovers committed. Against UCLA and USC, Oregon committed 40 turnovers.
On Saturday, the Ducks committed only six.
“We were just doing a lot better job of just sweeping the ball through (defenders) and not letting the pressure affect us,” Wagner said. “We’ve been focusing on that in practice, and we’ve been getting it done.”
For the Beavers, Howell led all scorers with 19, but also committed five turnovers. Howell also matched Oregon senior Corrie Mizusawa with a game-high seven assists.
“I think the number one thing we talked about was playing hard,” Smith said. “And we had it 100 percent tonight from all of our players.”