Karly LeVeque (right) led the Owls to the victory at Evergreen.
Owls End Evergreen's Season With 69-62 Win
OLYMPIA – The Evergreen State College saw its record-setting season come to a sudden close on Tuesday night when the visiting Oregon Tech Owls took a 69-62 win over the Geoducks in an opening round game of the 2015 CCC Women's Basketball Championships played at CRC Gymnasium.
Oregon Tech, the 2014 CCC tournament champion, improves its record to 21-10 and will travel to Southern Oregon for a semifinal game on Friday night. Evergreen's season ends with a 16-10 record.
The Owls came into the game as the tournament's fifth seed after finishing the conference season with a 9-9 record, while Evergreen earned the fourth seed and its first-ever conference tournament home game after a 10-8 campaign.
In two previous meetings this season the teams had battled to a standoff with each winning on their home court, and tonight's game showed how even the teams are. It wasn't until the final three minutes that Oregon Tech made the plays that resulted in victory.
Evergreen had the hot hand early, converting seven of its first nine shots from the field to race out to a 19-10 lead about halfway through the opening half. While the Geoducks were finding the range, the Owls were just 4-for-12 from the field in the early going.
The momentum of the game changed when the Oregon Tech defense picked up and the Geoducks suddenly went cold. After its hot start Evergreen finished the half shooting 1-for-14 and finished at 8-for-23, or 35 percent. Oregon Tech, meanwhile, improved enough on the offensive end to take a 26-24 lead into the halftime break.
The Owls maintained the lead through the first six minutes of the final half when Evergreen junior guard Karina Gee nailed back-to-back three-pointers to put her team on top, 40-35, with 13:26 to play. The Geoducks eventually built an eight-point advantage on two occasions, the second at 53-45 following a pair of Sadee Jones free throws with 6:33 on the clock.
Over the next 3 1/2 minutes Oregon Tech went on a 14-4 run, highlighted by back-to-back threes from Carrie Thibault and Megan Whetstone, to grab a 59-57 edge, but when Evergreen's Randi Boseman knocked down a jumper, the score was tied at 59-59 with 2:41 remaining.
Oregon Tech pushed out to a 63-60 lead on layins by Whetstone and LeVeque, and after misses on back-to-back possessions by the Geoducks, the Owls iced the game at the foul line. Whetstone sandwiched four free throws around a layin by Boseman, and after a missed three-pointer, Thibault closed it out with a pair of charity tosses with less than a second remaining.
"When you play a team that culturally has done really well, the last three minutes they were better than us and down the stretch they had more poise than we did," Evergreen head coach Jennifer Schooler said. "I told their coach that their kids looked like they had been there before, and we got tight and looked nervous. The things that we had done all year long just didn't happen."
LeVeque was one of four Oregon Tech players to score in double figures, leading the way with 20 points. She was 6-for-8 from the field, 3-for-3 from beyond the arc and 5-for-6 at the foul line. Thibault scored 15 points and both Whetstone and Tess Armstrong added 13 points for the winners. Between those four starters they scored all but eight of Oregon Tech's points. Whetstone and Thibault led the Owls with six rebounds apiece.
Natasha Trinidad led the Geoducks with 19 points and she added six rebounds, while Sadee Jones contributed 13 points and nine rebounds. Evergreen's leading scorer, LaNiecia Weatherspoon, tallied eight points and seven rebounds before fouling out after playing just 22 minutes, while Uriah Thomas finished with nine points.
The Geoducks shot 50 percent in the second half and finished the game shooting 43 percent (23-for-53) from the field and 67 percent (12-for-18) from the charity stripe. The hosts had a 33-30 rebound edge.
The Owls, meanwhile, won the game at the free throw line where they shot 91 percent (19-for-21). They finished at 45 percent accuracy (22-for-49) from the field.
So the season is done for the Geoducks, who set a program record for single-season winning percentage (.615) and tied another for most victories.
"The things that we've done with six bodies are a testament to their commitment to the program and their commitment to the coaching staff, and the coaching staff adjusting to what the team needed at all times," Schooler said. "What a team effort."