Beavers Pull Off Gritty, 2OT Win Over Arizona

The last game of the regular season came down to the wire for Oregon State. After a bruising back and forth against Arizona, the Beavers came away with a double overtime win, 65-60. The Beavers end the regular season with a 24-6 overall record, and a 14-4 conference record. That record is good enough for a 3rd seed headed into the Pac-12 tournament.

Taya Corosdale got scoring started for the Beavers, but Arizona answered with a three to take the lead. OSU responded by finding ways to pull defenders off of Jo Grymek in the post, and Jo capitalized with a pair of layups. After a poor showing Friday night, Destiny Slocum bounced back, hitting a three to extend the Beaver lead, and later finding an in transition Mikayla Pivec to set up an amazing layup.

After the first the Beavers were up 9, but there shooting began to cool off in the face of a more energetic Arizona defense. For the last 6:24 of the half, the Beavers only scored one point, a Mikayla Pivec free throw. Arizona didn’t shoot much better, but they did well enough to trim the lead to 4, 29-25, at halftime.

The Beaver offense finally snapped out of their cold streak to start the third. Katie McWilliams hit one of her patented threes, and Jo Grymek followed that up with another layup, to get the Beaver lead up to 9.

Unfortunately, the OSU offense cooled off once again, and Arizona went on a big run. The Beavers shots refused to fall, and with 2 minutes left in the quarter, Dominique McBryde hit a three to cut the OSU lead to 1, 36-35. Then, to start the 4th, an Aari McDonald layup gave the Wildcats the lead.

20 seconds later, the cold streak broke, with Mikayla Pivec getting the Beavers back in front. Destiny Slocum followed up with a 3, and Katie McWilliams hit a jump shot, and suddenly the Beavers had a bit of a lead again. They couldn’t keep Arizona down, and the Wildcats retook the lead with a pair of Aari McDonald free throws with three minutes to go.

The last minute of regulation was a flurry of action. Destiny Slocum grabbed an offensive rebound and hit a jumper to give the Beavers a one point lead. Arizona responded with a 3 point shot from McBryde to get a 2 point lead with 22 seconds left. With time ticking away, Katie McWilliams missed a three that would’ve given OSU the win, but Mikayla Pivec grabbed the rebound, and made a jumper to send the game to OT, tied 52-52.

Neither team could get an edge in the first overtime period. The lead swapped back and forth, and a free throw from Arizona’s Aari McDonald tied things up 56-56 with a minute to go. That would be the last bucket that counted, and the teams needed a second OT to get things decided.

The Wildcats jumped out to an early lead, but a pair of free throws from Jo Grymek tied things up. On the next possession, Grymek added a layup to get the Beavers in front. That lead would finally hold, as Grymek blocked the next Arizona shot, and the Beavers regained possession. After a series of Arizona fouls, Oregon State got the win, 65-60.

Mikayla Pivec led Oregon State in scoring, with 21 points, rebounds, with 14, and assists. with 5. It was an all around impressive effort from Pivec,

Jo Grymek was the Beavers next best scorer, although some controversial foul calls limited her ability to use her size. She finished with 14 points and 7 rebounds.

Destiny Slocum rebounded from her poor showing on Friday, with a solid 12 points. Slocum was more focused on setting up Pivec and Grymek today, and also grabbed 5 rebounds and 4 assists.

As previously mentioned, the Beavers have clinched the 3rd overall seed in the Pac-12 Tournament. On Friday, they’ll take on the winner of the matchup between #6 Utah and #11 Washington. Check back with Building the Dam for Pac-12 Tournament coverage.