By John Sleeper
Herald Writer
SEATTLE – Overtime, schmovertime.
To the Oregon State women’s basketball team, which went through its fourth overtime in its last six games Thursday night, overtime seems no different than a vigorous practice. The trick: have guard Leilani Estavan drain a halfcourt shot, as she did against the Washington Huskies to get it into the extra session, then hold on, as the Beavers did, 73-71, in a Pacific-10 Conference thriller at Hec Edmundson Pavilion.
”For us, overtime is not like, ‘Oh, wow, this is a lot more anxiety,’ ” OSU coach Judy Spoelstra said. ”It’s just kind of, like, exciting. ”
Like, no kidding.
After UW guard Loree Payne had appeared to settle the matter with a pair of free throws that gave the Huskies a 64-61 lead with 2.5 seconds left in regulation. The inbounds pass went to Estavan, who dribbled to midcourt, cast off leaning toward the hoop and drained the 3-pointer as the buzzer sounded.
”We didn’t have much time, so we wanted to get the ball in and push it, ” said Estavan, who finished with 13 points and hit all three of her 3-point attempts. ”We wanted to get it into (guard Felicia Ragland) on the sideline, but she wasn’t open. Coach said if you have the drive, drive and shoot it. ”
Said UW coach June Daugherty: ”We were up on her. We don’t want to foul her. She made an amazing shot. You have to give her credit. She made it, sideways, across her body like that. ”
Estavan also made the shot in overtime that essentially killed any chance the Huskies had, a 6-foot lean-in with the shot-clock buzzer blasting with 11.4 seconds remaining to give the Beavers a 73-69 lead. UW guard Giuliana Mendiola scored on a putback shot with 1.8 seconds remaining to cut the lead to two, but the Beavers (10-7 Pac-10, 14-13 overall) ran out the clock and celebrated at center court.
Ragland, the 2001 Pac-10 Player of the Year and the conference’s leading scorer at 19.9 points a game, was her usual brilliant self, scoring 19 of her game-high 25 points after halftime. Her most important points came in the overtime, a 10-footer on the baseline while she was falling out of bounds with 2:34 remaining to tie the game at 69, then a twirling, falling layup with 55.6 seconds left to give OSU a 71-69 advantage it would never give up.
”There’s a reason she was the Player of the Year, ” Daugherty said.
The Huskies (11-6, 16-10) have more than just Saturday’s regular-season finale against Oregon to worry about.
That would be center Andrea Lalum’s badly sprained left ankle.
Lalum fell to the floor in the first 1:10 of the game, landing on someone’s foot as she launched a putback shot in the lane. She was lost for the game and perhaps longer – perhaps even the Pac-10 Tournament next week.
”It’s a bad sprain, ” Daugherty said. ”She’s day-to-day. That’s all we know. ”
Without their most rugged inside force and best rebounder, much of Washington’s offense consisted of casting off from 3-point range. It didn’t work.
All but one UW field goal in the first half wasn’t a 3-pointer. The Huskies were 8-of-30 shooting at intermission, 7-of-16 from beyond the arc and didn’t convert a two-pointer for the first 17 minutes. For those scoring at home, that’s 1-for-14 shooting from inside 3-point range for the half.
In one hellish first-half stretch, the Huskies went without a point for nearly eight minutes. And the only reason the Beavers didn’t blow them out was that they were just as bad at the same time. While the Huskies were 0-of-9 and had seven turnovers in that time, Oregon State went scoreless for nearly seven minutes, clanking 10 straight shots and committing six turnovers.
It was that kind of half.
Washington’s sticky zone kept Ragland merely mortal most of the half, but the Beavers took advantage of their superior size inside to bat away UW shots and alter many others. Ragland’s layup gave the Beavers their biggest lead at 24-16 with 3:20 left in the half, but OSU managed four more points before halftime.
In the last two minutes, Kellie O’Neill hit a trey and a pair of free throws and Kayla Burt hit two more free throws to pull the Huskies even at 28 at the half.
O’Neill led the Huskies with 16 points. Mendiola added 14 and Payne and Emily Awtry chipped in 13 apiece.
Notes: Oregon State’s six blocks were the most for a UW opponent this season … The game had 14 lead changes and 13 ties, including two each in the overtime … Payne earned second-team honors on the Academic All-District VIII Women’s Basketball team, announced Thursday. Payne, a psychology major, carries a 3.68 grade-point average.
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