Cal Women's Basketball: Bears Lose to Oregon State
Cal had a 14-point lead midway through the third quarter and a nine-point advantage early in the fourth quarter, but the Bears could not hang on in 71-64 loss to Oregon State on Friday night at Haas Pavilion.
"I told the team, this is going to sting a bit," Cal coach Charmin Smith said. "Obviously, we had opportunities."
An 11-0 run helped Cal (12-6, 2-4 Pac-12) take a 42-28 lead with 4:08 left in the third quarter, and the Bears had all the momentum. Oregon State (14-2, 4-2 Pac-12) responded immediately with a 12-0 run to get back in the game.
Again Cal surged to take a 49-40 lead with 9:11 remaining in the fourth quarter. But again the Bears could not remain in control as the Beavers dominated play down the stretch.
"Our problem is we have to play for 40 minutes," said Cal guard Ioanna Krimili. "We've shown we are a really good team but we lose our focus."
Krimili scored a game-high 20 points and her fifth three-pointer of the game tied the contest 58-58 with 2:42 remaining.
However, a bucket by Oregon State's Dominika Paurova put the Beavers ahead 60-58, and Timea Gardiner followed with a three-point shot that gave Oregon State a five-point advantage with 1:08 to go.
The Beavers finished it off by going 8-for-8 from the foul line in the final minute. Two of those free throws were by Raegan Beers, the Beavers' all-conference center who was 1-for-10 from the line before making two with 46.5 seconds left.
The Bears benefited from the absence of Beers in the first half when foul trouble limited to Beers to eight minutes. She finished the game with 19 points on 8-for-11 shooting but 10 of those points came in the first six minutes of the game. When she went to the bench Cal took control.
However, the Bears could not stay in control after taking that nine-point lead early in the fourth quarter.
"This one is going to hurt," Krimili said. "It was our game and we just made turnovers when we didn't need to make turnovers."
Smith said again that this Cal team is better than her previous four Bears squads, and there were times Friday when Cal looked like a quality Pac-12 team.
"If we can just bottle it up for 40 minutes, maybe 38," Smith said. "Today we did it for maybe 26."
Cal shot just 35.5% for the game, but Oregon State entered the game ranked fifth in the country in field-goal percentage defense, allowed opponents to to shoot 33.4%. However, the Bears were just 6-for-19 in the fourth quarter.
Cover photo of Leilani McIntosh by Kelley L Cox, KLC fotos
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