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With the third-seeded Oregon State women's basketball team (25-7) defeating 14-seed Eastern Washington 73-51 at Gill Coliseum on Friday night, BeaversEdge Publisher Brenden Slaughter and writer Ryan Harlan give five important takeaways!
This story will be updated
1. Beavers Start Slow, But Then Roll Downhill Like A Freight Train
A trend for the Beavers all season has been slow starts followed by a solid second-half performance, which carried over into the first quarter against Eastern Washington. Oregon State opened the first quarter with eight early turnovers, while the Eagles had just six.
The Eagles jumped out to an early 18-10 lead, capitalizing on the Beavers' early mistakes. Oregon State looked like a team that hadn’t seen any significant game action within the past couple of weeks and scored the final five points of the first quarter to shake off the slow start.
Still, even with Eastern Washington grabbing early momentum in the first quarter and forcing those early turnovers, they were not able to outshoot the Beavers from the floor.
Oregon State regained momentum in the second half and outshot the Eagles 27-6 to close out the second half, never letting their foot off the gas. The Beavers settled in the rest of the way playing their brand of basketball controlling the rebounding game outrebounding the Eagles 45-26 throughout the course of the game.
Eastern Washington never got closer than 17 points the rest of the way and the Beavers lead by as much as 20 points.
- Ryan Harlan
2. Have A Birthday Dominka Paurova
The freshman from the Czech Republic celebrated her 19th birthday in style with a 17-point career-high performance and had two assists as well as three rebounds. With her family present from her home country, which likely helped spark her spectacular performance as she was the second leading scorer for the Beavers behind teammate Reagan Beers who had 19 points.
Paurova averaged 5.2 points coming off the bench throughout the regular season and was once again the offensive spark off the bench the Beavers were looking for when the shots weren’t falling their way.
She did most of her damage from the three-point line shooting 3-4 in the win over the Eagles, making a pair of threes early in the first quarter and went 6-8 from the floor. Paurova showed that anybody on this Oregon State team can step up can contribute in any way that they are asked to either from the starting lineup or off the bench.
For Paurova, this will be a birthday that she definitely will remember with her family present for her NCAA March Madness Tournament debut.
- Ryan Harlan
3. Raegan Beers Dominant Before Leaving Due To Injury
Oregon State goes how Raegan Beers goes, and against the Eagles on Friday, Beers was rolling, piling up 18 points and nine boards on an 8-for-10 shooting clip. Her strong evening was cut short however to close out the third as she went to the floor in noticeable discomfort, holding her right ankle.
She was able to leave under her own power and went to the locker room with the training staff, but returned shortly into the fourth quarter and was on the bench for the remainder of the contest.
Simply put, Beers' presence makes the Beavers a legit Final Four contender. All of Rueck's best OSU teams have had a dominant center presence (Ruth Hamblin & Marie Gulich) and Beers is 100% in that category of Elite Big.
The good news for the Beavers and Beers is that she was in the postgame press conference and was all smiles... She mentioned it was just a minor ankle injury and that she felt she'd be fine with a good dose of ice between games...
Having Beers avoid a significant injury was arguably the biggest win for the Beavers moving forward as they'll need her All-American production against increasingly tough competition.
- Brenden Slaughter
