WSU women's hoops beats Oregon 107-100 in the first round of the Pac-12 Tournament

From Seattle- The Washington State women’s basketball team (16-15, 10-9 Pac-12) beat the Oregon Ducks (15-15, 4-13 Pac-12) 107-100 in the first round of the Pac-12 Tournament in Seattle, Wash. WSU used an aggressive defense to force turnovers and score easy points on the fast break.

Washington State put the game out of reach for good when sophomore guard Lia Galdeira hit a wide open three pointer with 1:49 left in the game on a nice feed from sophomore point guard Dawnyelle Awa. Galdeira’s three-point shot put WSU up 101-94.

"Dawny [Dawynelle Awa] was at the controls…you know. All I saw was Dawny starting to penetrate and there were so many bodies in there in for Oregon," Washington State coach June Daugherty said. "And I heard Lia say: ‘SIS’ – which that’s what she calls Dawny – and she found her somehow."

Before Galdeira’s three pointer, the game was in doubt because of the number of three point shots that Oregon takes.

Oregon came out of half time on fire and went on a 5-0 run to start the half; Daugherty quickly called a timeout after the Ducks took the lead. The Cougars came out of that timeout and immediately took the lead back from Oregon, 61-60. But the Ducks responded with another bucket to take the lead back again.

After Oregon hit that bucket, the Cougs scored eight unanswered points to take the lead for good.

Taylor Edmondson was a major reason that Washington State won the game, as 10 of her 14 points came in the second half. Edmondson went 5-of-12 from the field, and the majority of those were from beyond the arc (she hit four of her seven three point attempts).

The Cougars' largest lead of the game came in the first half when they went up 55-44 late. But the Ducks quickly cut that lead to four (55-51) and prevented WSU from running away with the first half.

WSU forced the Ducks into 19 turnovers over the course of the game and only turned the ball over eight times. That being said, the majority of those came in the first half, as limiting turnovers in the second half was a major discussion point for the Ducks at half time.

"We were trying to minimize our own turnovers, because that would be key for us to run our break." Oregon Coach Paul Westhead said.

This was the highest scoring game in conference tournament history.

Galdeira became the second fastest women’s baskeball player in program history to score 1,000 points in their career – Jeanne Eagert scored her 1,000th point in her 57th game. Galdeira did it in 61 games (an average of 16.5 ppg).