Oregon State WBB: Beavers Fall to ASU 55-47 for First Loss of Season

The Beavers were pushed hard in their last two games against Colorado and Arizona, but it was the Arizona State Sun Devils who finally handed Oregon State their first loss of the season. Oregon State falls to 15-1, and 3-1 in the Pac-12, while Arizona State sits at 13-4, and 3-2 in conference.

The Beavers jumped out to a 4-0 lead to start things off, but then their shooting deserted them. They wouldn’t score for the remainder of the first quarter, allowing ASU to build a 13-4 lead early. The Beavers finally started scoring again in the second, but couldn’t get any closer to the Sun Devils, ending the half down 24-14.

The Beavers started clawing their way back in the third, with Destiny Slocum, Mikayla Pivec and Taylor Jones finally finding a rhythm. But whenever the Beavers started to get close to ASU, the Sun Devils would pull away again, and Oregon State’s shooting remained inconsistent enough that the team couldn’t put together a solid run.

The 4th quarter was emblematic of this. The Beavers battled back and finally tied the game up, but the Sun Devils grabbed the lead back immediatley. A foul put Mikayla Pivec at the line with the Beavers down four and two minutes remaining, but Pivec, perhaps the team’s best shooter, missed both her shots. ASU grabbed the rebound and put the game away.

The Beavers shot exceptionally poorly, only hitting 31.1% of their field goals. They were especially bad at three point shooting, hitting only 2 out of their twenty attempts, both from Destiny Slocum. That’s 10 percent, and the Beavers are going to struggle winning big games if they do that again. They got bullied off the three point line by ASU’s guards, and will have to work out a way to counter that by next weekend.

Pivec and Slocum led the Beavers in scoring, with 13 points each. Pivec added 10 rebounds and 4 assists for a double double, while Slocum also contributed 6 rebounds and 6 assists. Taylor Jones also hit double digits, with 11 points and 13 rebounds.

The Beavers don’t have much time to lick their wounds. They return to Gill Coliseum next weekend to take on Cal (8-6, 0-3) on Friday and Stanford (14-1, 3-0) on Sunday. Sunday’s match up against 5th ranked Stanford is set to be one of the biggest games in college basketball all season.