Halfway through Thursday night’s game against West Coast Conference rival Santa Clara, it looked like the Oregon State women were set to snap their two game losing streak in grand fashion. The Beavers held onto a 16 point lead at halftime, but in the second half Oregon State’s shooting and defense fell apart, handing the Broncos an 83-70 win. The loss drops the Beavers to 17-9 on the season, and 9-4 in the West Coast Conference.
For the first five minutes of the game Oregon State had Santa Clara locked down defensively, holding the Broncos scoreless until midway through the first quarter. In that time the Beavers built a 13 point lead, with Ally Schimel, Kennedie Shuler and Lizzy Williamson all contributing. Santa Clara wasn’t able to make much headway into cutting away the Beaver lead, with an Alana Goodchild three cutting the Beavers margin to 13 at the end of the quarter, 27-14.
The second quarter was more of the same, though this time it was Lara Alonso, Tiara Bolden and Jenna Villa scoring most of the points for Oregon State. Santa Clara managed to hang around, with Ava Schmidt scoring seven in the second quarter to keep the Broncos alive, but at the end of the first half the Beavers held onto a 16 point, 48-32 lead…