Eugene, OR – A raucous, sellout crowd of 12,364 greeted the much anticipated Civil War match-up between the No. 4-ranked Oregon Ducks and the No. 7–ranked Oregon State Beavers. Oregon ran out to a 19-point first half lead and withstood a strong Beaver second half in a 76-64 Duck win.
Sabrina Ionescu led Oregon with 23 points on 10-of-15 shooting including 3-of-4 3s. She added nine assists and four rebounds. Satou Sabally was solid with 17 points, 12 rebounds and six assists. Ruthy Hebard added 17 points and nine rebounds. 6-4 frosh center Taylor Jones led the Beavers with 21 points on 10-of-12 shooting. Point guard Destiny Slocum added 18 points (4-of-6 3s), five rebounds and four assists.
Oregon led 25-18 after the first quarter as Ionescu hit a three-pointer at the buzzer ending the quarter. The Beavers had started off strongly, helped by two three-pointers from Slocum and took an early 10-2 lead. Oregon closed the quarter on a 23-8 run helped by nine Ionescu points and eight from Sabally.
Ionescu was on top of her game and hit a three-pointer from the wing and two jumpers to help the Ducks extend their lead to 16 points at the four minute mark of the second quarter. A corner three from Erin Boley on a pass by Sabally brought the lead to 42-23 and forced the Beavers to call a timeout. The half closed with Oregon in front 45-29. Oregon State was effective getting the ball inside to their center Jones, who scored 17 points in the half on 8-of-9 shooting. Ionescu finished the half with 15 points and six assists while soph guard Taylor Chavez connected on all her three 3-point attempts and scored nine points. Sabally scored 10 points, grabbed eight rebounds and dished out out five assists in the half.
Oregon State closed the Oregon lead to ten at 53-43 with two minutes left in the third quarter, helped by two baskets from substitute Jasmine Simmons The Ducks came right back and scored six straight points with frosh Jaz Shelley hitting a three pointer. Ionescu hit another buzzer-beating three-pointer off an offensive rebound to close the quarter with Oregon up 62-46. Aleah Goodman helped keep the Beavers in the game with nine third quarter points, connecting on two three-pointers.
Helped by a four-point play by Slocum, Oregon State again cut Oregon’s lead to ten (67-57) with 5:39 remaining. After a steal, Slocum fed Goodman for a lay-up to cut the lead to seven but a Sabally three-pointer brought the lead back to ten. The Beavers were able to get within eight points, but that was as close as they would get as Oregon closed out the 12-point win at the foul line.
Oregon committed seven turnovers in the game, all in the second half with six in the fourth quarter. The Beavers had 13 turnovers. The teams battled evenly on the boards and Oregon shot 9-of-21 from deep vs. 6-of-22 for the Beavers.
The two teams travel to Corvallis on Sunday afternoon for the second sold-out Civil War game.
This article was written by Carl Berman, Managing Partner of NetScouts Basketball. You can follow us on Facebook, or on twitter.
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