SEATTLE – Before any players came on the court to warm up and before any fans entered the arena on Saturday afternoon, Kristen O’Neill sat on the Washington bench and looked around. She looked across the court into the stands, picking out the exact spot where she sat as a little girl to cheer on the Huskies.
A couple hours later, O’Neill walked off the court, looked into the stands and saw many little girls cheering for her for the last time in Hec Edmundson Pavilion.
The former Meadowdale High star had just played her best game in a month in the final home contest of her Husky career. She scored a team-high 17 points, grabbed seven rebounds and had two of Washington’s 11 steals while leading the depleted Huskies to a hard-fought 66-51 victory over Oregon State.
Washington finished the season 12-2 at home. The win, coupled with UCLA’s loss to USC on Saturday, moved the Huskies (18-7, 11-5 league) into third place in the Pacific-10 Conference. It was the UW’s fifth consecutive win over Oregon State, which fell to 6-10, 12-12.
The Huskies played without leading scorer and rebounder Cameo Hicks, out with an aggressive and highly contagious form of stomach flu. The illness also affected Jill Bell and Angie Jones, kept assistant coach Kellie Lewis-Jay home and hit former Husky Kayla Burt, who along with O’Neill and Nicole Castro, were honored in a pregame ceremony on Senior Day.
With Hicks out, O’Neill made her first start since Dec. 4 and had her best game since a 19-point performance against Arizona on Jan. 26. O’Neill said she had been thinking about the game since the 2005-06 schedule was released.
“It was pretty emotional,” O’Neill said. “I tried to stay composed as much as I could. This has been a challenging five years, but an incredible five years. I feel that I’ve grown so much.”
O’Neill learned she would get the start at the team’s breakfast Saturday. Husky coach June Daugherty said O’Neill’s reaction was typical of the senior guard.
“As usual, Kristen is like, ‘Whatever it takes,’” Daugherty said.
What it took was O’Neill stepping up in place of Hicks as the Huskies built a 20-point second half lead despite a poor shooting night, only to see Oregon State cut the lead to nine. But a late 12-3 run by Washington put the game away.
“It’s a gutsy performance,” Daugherty said of her team. “We got down and did what we had to do, and that’s play defense, rebound and we were able to keep the tempo the way we like to play.”
Washington shot just 31 percent, but compensated by holding OSU to 29.3 percent shooting and 51 points, both season-best marks for the UW defense. Washington also turned 22 Beavers turnovers into 18 points and 22 offensive rebounds into 20 second-chance points.
Still, the game wasn’t decided until late in the second half. Washington led 45-25 on a three-point play by O’Neill with 14:17 to go, but OSU leading scorer Kim Butler, held to two points and 1-for-11 shooting the first half, took over down low. The 6-foot-1 senior from Tacoma had 18 points in the second half and went 10-for-12 from the foul line. Her layup with 6:56 to play cut the deficit to nine and it stayed that way until Dominique Banks made a 3-pointer with 5:11 to play. The Huskies never led by fewer than 12 the rest of the way.
“I didn’t even know it was that big of a shot until everybody was telling me, ‘That was a big shot you hit,’” said Banks, who had 14 points and seven rebounds. “I was just playing, just trying to get the energy up.”
Washington scored the first eight points of the game and led 13-4 on an Emily Florence 3-pointer before the Beavers closed to 13-8. Oregon State then went scoreless for nearly 6 minutes, yet Washington managed to score just eight points in that period to lead 21-8.
The Huskies did finish the half strong, going on a 6-0 run to lead 34-17 at halftime. The Beavers shot just 25 percent and turned the ball over 15 times in the first half, leading to 14 Washington points. The Huskies shot 32.4 percent before halftime and made just one of nine 3-pointers, but outscored the Beavers 11-0 from the free throw line.
The Huskies still have two regular season games remaining – next week at California and Stanford – and have high hopes for a strong postseason run. But the end of her Husky career is coming too soon for O’Neill, who lingered on the Hec Ed court with sister and former Husky, Kellie, and the rest of her family long after the arena had emptied.
O’Neill knows she’ll miss the feeling she felt Saturday as she walked off the court for the final time before an adoring home crowd.
“It was cool to look around, look at the faces and just see people who had made such an impact on my life over the last five years,” she said. “I’ve been a Husky for life.”
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