Cougs grab first Pac-10 win over OSU

THE WASHINGTON STATE women's hoops team has been close to a Pac-10 victory on a few occasions over the past year but fell short each time. Friday night against Oregon State, however, they rallied and broke through for their first conference victory after 29 consecutive losses, besting Oregon State 56-52. They did it with tenacious defense and rebounding.

Junior Ebonee Coates scored 18 points and grabbed 11 boards Friday night as the Cougs overcame a 10-point second half deficit and played without leading scorer Katie Appleton, (ankle), and sophomore guard Colleen Betteridge, who left the team this week.

Indeed, only eight players suited up for Washington State on Friday. One of them was junior Heather Molzen, who logged a double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds. She also logged seven assists.

Before the breakthrough win, the Cougars had lost 14 consecutive games overall this season 29 in a row going back to last season.

"We have asked these players to play for 40 minutes as hard as they can rather than playing the scoreboard," said first-year coach June Daugherty, who notched her first conference win at the helm of the Cougar program. "I thought we did that tonight. We were solid defensively and our rebounding was the best it has been all season."

The teams were tied twice after WSU took a 40-39 lead with 7:51 to play but Alexa Price hit a 3-pointer with 3:03 to play, stretching WSU's lead to seven and sealing the win.

Also cleaning the glass was freshman Katie Calderwood, who pulled down a career-high eight rebounds. The Cougars had 11 offensive rebounds to OSU's six, and outrebounded Oregon State overall by a margin 42 to 28.

Calderwood and freshman Jasmine Williams each added nine points for the Cougs.