Bears Pull Away Late for a 66-57 Win Over Oregon

HAAS PAVILION - It took a while to get going but the Bears overtook a game Oregon squad late and pulled away for a satisfying 66-57 win over the Ducks to close out their homestand with a victory in Berkeley. The win halted a 3-game skid for the Bears after dropping road games to strong Utah and Colorado squads and Oregon State on Friday.

“I’m really happy that we came away with the win,” Cal head coach Charmin Smith said after the game. “Every game in this conference is extremely challenging and you have to be resilient and you have to stick together and fight through and I thought this was a great team win. I loved our persistence. Io (guard Ionanna Krimili) knocked down some good shots and we got some big stops when we needed to. It was a good win.”

Early in the game, Cal point guard Leilani McIntosh continued her march up the Cal record book, moving into seventh place on the Bears’ all-time steals list much as she had all season in assists all-time leader board, also moving up to fourth on the all-time list into fourth. But despite the milestone achievement, the senior point guard struggled offensively in the early going, much as the team did, going scoreless in the first half, with the team overall shooting just 25% from the floor.

“I think something that the staff’s been telling me is we all just need to stay the course,” McIntosh said after the game. “I can’t just put my head down about shots that aren’t going in. I felt like I took good shots and it was just a matter of time before they started falling.”

Senior guard Ioanna Krimili was the exception, keeping the Bears from falling too much behind, hitting four 3’s and leading all scorers with 14 at the break. The Bears’ tenacity on the boards also kept things competitive, racking up an impressive 28 boards to Oregon’s 17 as well as a stellar 16 boards on the offensive end as the Ducks took a 33-31 lead into the locker room.

The Bears continued to struggle in the third quarter. After briefly tying the game at 37 on a Krimili layup with 6:08 left in the quarter, the Ducks went on a 7-0 run capped by a Chance Gray 3 to go up 44-37. But the Bears weren’t ready to fold, going on a 10-2 run of their own, taking their first brief lead of the game at 47-46 late in the third quarter on a Marta Suarez layup. Center Michelle Onyiah scored her first points of the game on a layup to start the run.

After missing her first four shots, McIntosh finally got on the board with a 3, giving the Bears their biggest lead of the game at 54-50 with 7:21 left in the game. Moments later, Krimili extended the lead to 6 with a jumper. After Oregon scored the next 4, McIntosh again found nothing but net from the corner to extend the Bears’ lead again to 5 with 3:56 left in the game.

After a Sophia Bell 3 and an Onyiah layup on a pretty Suarez wraparound pass to put Cal up 61-57, the game became a defensive struggle, with both teams failing to scoring till a Krimili free throw with 52 seconds remaining gave the Bears a 5 point lead. With the Ducks forced to foul while missing from the charity stripe on their end, the Bears hung on in the end, pulling away for the 66-57 win.

“We had to have it,” Smith said of the win. “And I’m glad we responded. It wasn’t easy. Oregon did some really good things... they’re just really big and talented but we just would not be denied. We knew we had to win this game.

The Bears were led by Krimili with 24 points and 5 rebounds by Krimili along with 16 points and 10 rebounds by Suarez. Oregon was paced by center Phillipina Kyei with 17 points and 14 rebounds in the loss. And I’m really proud of our response to a really heartbreaking loss on Friday.”

Cal moved to 13-6 on the season and 3-4 in conference play.