Women’s basketball wins a double OT thriller

Last season, the Washington State women’s basketball team didn’t play a single overtime game.

Two seasons ago, they played a single overtime game, the third game of the season.

In 2021 the Cougs can’t seem to stop playing overtime thrillers. That included the game on Sunday when the Cougs took it to another level and played a double overtime thriller against Oregon State. WSU prevailed, playing beautiful defense on Oregon State’s final possession to secure a 77-75 victory.

It was WSU’s fourth overtime game in its last five contests. The Cougars had a chance to avoid OT this time around, but couldn’t get a shot off on the final play of regulation. That came after OSU quickly erased WSU’s 7-point lead late in the fourth quarter.

WSU was led by the Leger-Walker sisters. Krystal led the team with 23 points while Charlisse chipped in 22 points. Cherilyn Molina hit a pair of key three-point shots in overtime and finished with 15 points.

It was a huge win for the Cougs who entered the game on a three-game losing streak — including losses to then No. 8 UCLA and No. 13 Oregon. Unfortunately, it does not get any easier. Due to some rescheduling, the Cougs will play back-to-back games against No. 5 Stanford this week before hosting No. 6 UCLA next week.

Maybe they can avoid overtime at least once.