SEATTLE — On a day devoted to seniors, a sophomore nearly stole the show.
In its final regular season game, Washington put together its best effort of the season to upset ninth-ranked California 74-66 on Sunday in front of 2,775 at Hec Edmundson Pavilion.
Leading the way was sophomore guard Sami Whitcomb, who scored 16 of her game-high 24 points in the second half. Her big second half included a stretch of 12 points in just over four minutes on 4-for-4 3-point shooting to turn a three-point lead into a 54-43 advantage.
“We kept going to her,” said Washington coach Tia Jackson. “She was on fire. I looked at her in the timeout and she game me that nod. I said, ‘Let’s ride you honey.’ And we did.”
Asked what was working for the team offensively, senior Andrea Plouffe deadpanned, “Well, Sami.”
Plouffe and point guard Emily Florence, Washington’s two seniors who were honored before the game, had plenty to do with Washington’s win as well.
Plouffe finished with 11 points and five rebounds, and her screens helped free Whitcomb for several of her eight field goals. Florence, meanwhile, earned her first career double-double in her last regular season game, finishing with 11 points and 11 rebounds, as well as three assists. The 5-foot-5 guard, whose rebound total tied a career high, had five offensive rebounds.
“It’s all about these two right here,” Jackson said, sitting between her two seniors in a postgame press conference. “They deserve an end point like this, and the team gave it to them. They gave them all their energy, their heart, their soul.”
Florence and Plouffe noticed the extra effort put forth by their younger teammates.
“The cool thing was, our teammates were so excited for us,” said Florence. “They wanted to win so bad for us, and that means a lot. You could see it in every one of their eyes, they wanted to do it. They told us before the game, ‘We’re going to win for you guys,’ and they gave everything they could. That was the biggest thing, just everybody’s heart.”
For the second time in three days, Washington went into the locker room at halftime with thoughts of an upset over a top-10 team. The Huskies were down just two to seventh-ranked Stanford on Friday after one half, but the Cardinal opened the second half with a 12-0 run on the way to a 20-point victory.
This time, the Huskies finished strong. Washington led 33-29 at halftime, and when Cal made its comeback attempts, the Huskies responded. After the Bears tied the score at 36, Washington answered with an 18-7 run — which included Whitcomb’s four consecutive 3s — to go up by 11.
That lead grew to 14 points on a Plouffe layup with four minutes to play, but Cal wasn’t done yet. The Bears went on a 12-1 run to make the score 63-60 with 57 seconds remaining, but Washington went 9-for-12 on free throws from that point to put the game away.
The Huskies said they thought about Friday’s second-half meltdown at halftime of Sunday’s game.
“We wanted to remember what happened and how it felt,” said Whitcomb, who matched a career high with five 3-pointers. “It was our game to take we felt like. For whatever reason we lost focus for a second, got too excited, whatever the case may be, we ended up losing that game and we thought we gave it away. So we wanted to focus on that in the sense that we weren’t going to do the same thing.”
Washington’s first win over a top-10 team since Dec. 22, 2005 was big not only because it was the final home game for the seniors, but also because of what it meant in the Pac-10 standings.
The win makes Washington 8-10 in conference play, locking up sixth-place and a first-round bye in the Pac-10 Tournament. Washington’s first game in the tournament will be Saturday against Arizona, the No. 3 team in the Pac-10. The Huskies are 0-2 against ASU this season. A loss would have dropped Washington into seventh place, forcing them to play on Friday.
The upset was costly for Cal, which had a chance to earn a share of its first Pac-10 title, but must now instead settle for second place behind Stanford.
“We worked so hard this year to put ourselves in this position, and then didn’t do what we needed to do to finish it off,” said Cal coach Joanne Boyle.
Boyle said that Washington was a very different team Sunday than it was in December when her team opened Pac-10 play with a 26-point win over the Huskies.
Jackson and her players readily agree with that assessment.
“I think it just shows our growth,” said Plouffe. “From the beginning of the season to the end, we’ve come a long way as a team.”
Contact Herald Writer John Boyle at jboyle@heraldnet.com. For more on University of Washington sports, check out the Huskies blog at heraldnet.com/huskiesblog
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