The Duck ladies hosted Penn State yesterday afternoon. PSU occupies last place in the Big Ten, and was on a nine-game losing streak. I figured the game should be a straightforward win for Oregon. I had the game on but was involved with something else, so I did not start watching until a couple of minutes into the game.
Imagine my horror at seeing Penn State up 7-0 over the Ducks.
Head coach Kelly Graves wisely called a timeout, and after a couple of minutes of back-and-forth, with no change in the score, Sarah Rambus finally got in a layup off a turnover, and Oregon was on the board.
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I didn’t start relaxing until the end of the first quarter, where Oregon finished with a 14-2 run to take control of the contest.
Penn State hung around to the half and were only down six points. That was the good news for the Lions. The bad news was that they were playing this game without their leading scorer, 6-6 center Gracie Merkle, due to injury.
After the halftime break, the Ducks turned on the jets and could not be stopped, scoring 34 points in the 3rd quarter off 72% shooting. Without Merkle, there was no chance of PSU making the game competitive.
There would be no PSU comeback, and Graves pulled all the starters except Ehis Etute with a little over seven minutes left in the game, and got the bench some playing time.
Nyla McFadden and Kiyomi McMiller each scored 15 points for PSU. The Lady Lions shot 39.3%, including 23.8% from distance.
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Oregon shot 57%, including nearly 43% from beyond the arc, and were 11-13 at the charity stripe.
Sarah Rambus scored a career-high 20 points. Katie Fiso notched her seventh double-double of the season, with 15 points and 10 assists. Ari Long put up 11 points and Mia Jacobs scored 10. Oregon’s bench scored 42 points, with 30 of those points coming in the second half.
The Ducks (15-7, 3-6 Big-10) picked up a much-needed win, and now go to the East Coast to face Rutgers (9-10, 1-7 Big-10) on Wednesday. After that, #15 Maryland hosts Oregon on Saturday.
