Oregon State Women’s Basketball: Beavers Beat Cal 68-59

Oregon State bounced back from a tough loss to Stanford with a solid win over California Sunday afternoon, taking down the Golden Bears 68-59 in their last home game of the season. The Beavers improve to 13-10 overall, and 6-7 in Pac-12 play.

The game started on a bittersweet note. Andrea Aquino joined the Beavers as a highly rated recruit in 2018, but due to undisclosed health issues, she has never been able to take the court. That finally changed Sunday afternoon, as Oregon State brought her out for the tip off, and Cal allowed her to score the first basket of the night. It’s unfortunate she never got the chance to show what she was capable of, but its great that she’ll always be part of Oregon State history.

The Beavers ceded a make up basket to Cal after that, and things were underway. Cal took a quick lead with back to back threes from Jayda Curry and Jazlen Green, but Kennedy Brown and Talia von Oelhoffen tied things up for the Beavers. The game remained close for the rest of the quarter, with Tea Adams giving the Beavs a two point lead with a free throw as time wound down.

Oregon State maintained a slim lead for most of the second quarter, with Ellie Mack in particular finding a scoring rhythm. Cal managed to keep things tight, and went on a four point run as the half closed out to take a two point, 35-33 lead into the locker room.

The Beavers took the lead back out of the break with a layup and plus one from Kennedy Brown. Taya Corosdale added a couple more free throws, but then the Bears took the lead back with back to back buckets from Jayda Curry. Cal held momentum for most of the third quarter, extending their lead to as much as seven with a Leilani McIntosh three.

After that, things started swinging back into the Beavers favor. A jumper from Mack and a layup with a free throw from Corosdale got the Cal lead down to two. Ellie then tied the game with a jumper, and gave the Beavers the lead back with a beautiful three point shot. A few free throws later and Oregon State carried a five point lead in to the fourth.

The Beavers maintained momentum to open the fourth, and extended their lead to 11 points before their scoring cooled off. The Beavers only scored 6 points in the final six minutes of the game, but the defense managed to shut down Cal to such an extent that any scoring woes didn’t matter. A pair of Ellie Mack free throws sealed the win as time expired, with the Beavers up 68-59.

Mack led Oregon State in scoring, with 14 points and six rebounds. Taya Corosdale was second, with 10 points, 9 rebounds and an assist. Talia von Oelhoffen, Jelena Mitorvic and Kennedy Brown rounded out the top scorers, with 9 points each.

There’s one week left in the regular season, and Oregon State will be on the road to close it out. They’ll head east to visit the Mountain schools, facing Utah on Thursday, February 24th and Colorado on Saturday, February 26th.