Wildcats End Beavers Season, 69-54

Freshman Jasmine Smith led the Beavers with 17 points.

Salem-News.com SPORTS

SAN JOSE - Oregon State’s women’s basketball season came to an end on Friday night as the No. 8 seeded Beavers dropped a 69-54 decision to No. 9 seed University of Arizona in the State Farm Pac-10 Tournament.

The youthful OSU squad exceeded expectations throughout the year and finished the season with a 9-19 overall record and 4-14 mark in Pac-10 play.

Arizona improves to 11-20 overall and will advance to play top-seeded Stanford at 5:00 PM Saturday.

Both teams struggled to get things going offensively for the majority of the opening half.

OSU shot 50-percent from the floor in the opening 20 minutes, but had 15 first half turnovers, including six in the game’s first five minutes.

Fortunately, Arizona shot just 38-percent from the field and missed numerous easy lay-ups.

Oregon State scored 11 of their 29 first half points from the free throw line as the teams went into the locker room tied.

Beaver freshman guard Jasmine Smith sparked OSU offensively in the second half, scoring 12 of her team-leading 17 points in the final 20 minutes.

With neither team taking larger than a four point lead, Arizona finally started to pull away midway through the second frame.

Ashley Allen’s put-back gave Oregon State its final lead at 43-41 with 9:41 left before the Wildcats reeled off 12 straight points.

Arizona junior guard Ashley Whisonant scored five of her game-high 23 points in the stretch.

Playing in her 122nd career game, senior guard Casey Nash finished with 11 points, while struggling to score from the floor. Allen and Mercedes Fox-Griffin added nine points each.

Both teams committed a combined 49 turnovers and shot 50 free throws.

Nash, a first team All-Pac-10 selection, closed a tremendous career at Oregon State.

The Stayton, native finished her career with 1,163 points (8th place all-time at OSU) and 679 rebounds (6th place all-time at OSU).

Fellow senior Ebony Young also played her final game in a Beaver uniform on Friday night

Adding comments to these stories has been disabled. View the current sports stories Salem-News Sports