Beavers Dominate Ducks, Win 10th Straight Civil War

The Oregon State run of Civil War dominance continues. It feels good to type these words.

Senior center Ruth Hamblin's monster performance propelled the No. 11 OSU (11-3, 2-1) women's basketball team to their 10^th straight victory over University of Oregon (11-3, 0-3) in a 60-33 romp. Hamblin was the bona fide player of the game, raking up 15 points, nine rebounds, just missing a double double, and seven blocks for the Beavers, including below against Lexi Petersen.

Her paint presence rendered the Ducks' frontcourt completely useless, as every attempt to feed the ball inside by UO was thwarted. Oregon's leading scorer was their senior forward Jillian Alleyne, who was the only duck to score in double digits with 10 points on 4-16 shooting.

Alleyne suffered a twisted ankle in the third quarter, and missed 10 minutes of action. It contributed to Alleyne's Pac-12 conference record run of 29 straight double doubles coming to an end, as she only got 6 boards.

In the first quarter, the game briefly had the looks of a low-scoring grind fest. The score was briefly tied at three points apiece after several minutes of play, but Hamblin managed to get the Beavers a few easy buckets to get the score up to 16-7 to end the quarter.

From there, the Beavers confidently held control of the game. The Ducks could not throw a rock into the ocean tonight, and their offense looked absolutely anemic, to put it kindly. That can be largely attributed to the collective team effort on defense for OSU, as well as the stellar individual defense by junior guard Gabby Hanson, below, who tallied four steals and 11 points.

Katie McWilliams, who played point guard tonight, deserves credit as well, as she handled the ball admirably amidst considerable pressure. It was the freshman's first Civil War, and it was clear that it was apart of Oregon's game plan to single her out. Despite the extra attention, McWilliams never looked out of her element. In one instance early in the fourth quarter, UO guard Mar'Shay Moore was playing McWilliams very closely, giving her very little breathing room. Instead of panicking, McWilliams trusted her ball-handling skills and beat her to the right. She proceeded to leave Moore in the dust, dribbling to the arc and swishing a three.

It was a promising performance from McWilliams, above, who finished with seven points and a team-high four assists.

Another important number was the game high 11 rebounds Devan Hunter hauled down, part of the 49 boards the Beavers grabbed.

The game was a 180-degree turnaround for the Beavers, who were recently on the receiving end of a blowout loss themselves on Monday in a 71-51 loss to UCLA. The Beavers clearly made UO play their own game tonight, holding the Ducks to 21.5 percent shooting.

"I felt like we would have a great effort tonight," Oregon State coach Scott Rueck said. "I think anytime you lose it shakes your confidence a bit and makes you rethink things, and I think we got through that on our day off on Tuesday, and through the first part of practice in our discussion on Wednesday."

The most surprising aspect of tonight's game was that senior Jamie Weisner only shot 1-10 from the field for ten points, running into some foul trouble early in the game. However, her contributions on the glass were huge. Weisner grabbed a total of nine rebound on the night, playing aggressive in other areas on an off shooting night.

Up next, the Beavers will travel south to Eugene on Sunday to take on UO again in Matthew Knight Arena. The Ducks are likely going to be looking at a very long practice tomorrow.

(Photos by Andy Wooldridge)