Beavers Fall To Cougars in Double OT, 77-75

The Oregon State women will have to wait for their first win of 2021, as despite a tough effort they fell to Washington State for the second time this season. This time the Beavers pushed the Cougars to double overtime, but Washington State emerged victorious, 77-75. This is the Beavers’ fifth loss in a row, and the second since their return from their Covid mandated hiatus. They sit at 3-5 overall, and 1-5 in the Pac-12.

Things started well for the Beavers. Oregon State jumped out to an early lead behind some excellent shooting from Aleah Goodman. Goodman scored 10 to the first quarter, and the Beavers rode some early momentum to take a 19-13 lead into the second. Some of that momentum came from Talia Von Oelhoffen, who after graduated high school early recently joined the Beavers after announcing her commitment last November. Oelhoffen got the first points of her college career with a three point shot in the first.

The Beavers continued their run in the second, with Goodman and Taylor Jones scoring early to give OSU a 13 point lead. The Cougars began to claw their way back into the game; and when Oregon State’s shooting went cold for the last four minutes of the quarter Cherilyn Molina powered a Wazzu run to cut the Beaver lead to just three, 31-28, headed into halftime.

Washington State’s momentum continued in the third, with a layup from Krystal Leger-Walker and free throws from Charlisse Leger-Walker giving them the lead. The Leger-Walkers powered Washington State’s scoring for most of the quarter, with Krystal capitalizing on turnovers and Charlisse hitting threes. Washington State led by four before Aleah Goodman managed to tighten things up for the Beavers. OSU went into the fourth down one, 43-42.

The Leger-Walkers continued to power a Wazzu run, putting the Cougars up seven in the final quarter of regulation. Things seemed over for the Beavers before Taylor Jones sparked the offense back into the game, and Aleah Goodman tied things up with a three pointer with less than five minutes left in the game. The score stayed close for the rest of the quarter, but after the Cougars hit three free throws with less than a minute left things seemed over. Sasha Goforth then decided she wasn’t done, and hit a big clutch three to send the game to overtime, 58-58.

Krystal Leger-Walker gave the Cougars the first lead in OT, but a layup and free throw from Aleah Goodman gave the Beavers their first lead since right after the half. The two squads battled back and forth, with Taya Corosdale and Cherilyn Molina trading threes and free throws from Oregon State matching layups from Wazzu. An Aleah Goodman layup gave OSU a three point lead with a minute left, but a Molina three tied things up. Double OT.

The second OT was almost all free throws. Taylor Jones hit one to give the Beavers a lead, then Cherilyn Molina hit four in a row to give it back to WSU. Taylor Jones hit the Beavers only field goal with a layup, then Taya Corosdale then hit a pair of free throws, followed by one more from Molina. Charlisse Leger-Walker then hit Washington State’s only field goal of the period to give the Cougars a two point lead.

With 30 seconds to go, the Beavers had the ball, but Jones missed a hookshot. Taya Corosdale grabbed an offensive rebound and got the ball to Aleah, but Ula Motuga blocked Goodman’s layup. The Beavers grabbed another offensive rebound with 5 seconds left. The team got the ball to Goodman, but she couldn’t find an open look and Washington State hung on for the win.

Despite the disappointing ending, Goodman had an amazing afternoon. She finished with 33 points, a career record, 6 assists and a rebound. Taylor Jones added 16 points, 14 rebounds and an assist. Taya Corosdale rounded out the top scores with 9 points 7 rebounds an an assist. In her first game with the team, Talia Von Oelhoffen scored 6 points, and added 4 rebounds and an assist.

It was another disappointing loss, but the Beavers showed an amount of grit we haven’t seen this season. They’ve gotten down early before when their scoring waned, but we haven’t seen them claw their way back into a game like this in awhile. Its frustrating, but progress is happening. The Beavers will look to get their first win of the year on Tuesday, in their makeup game against Washington, which was originally scheduled for Friday.