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Eugene, OR -- It was a tremendous victory for the Ducks tonight as they sailed over the Hampton Pirates in Matthew Knight Area, 86-51.
The first quarter was relatively slow and back and forth between the two teams. The Ducks were able to gain a lead early, but Hampton would quickly respond and keep up to this slow pace set by the Ducks. On Hampton's end, Malia Tate-Defreitas carried the team, collecting 7 points and 3 rebounds alone in the quarter.
Jillian Alleyne did her role protecting the basket, grabbing offensive rebounds and turning those rebounds into points for the Ducks. To supplement Oregon's early strong rebounding game, was a closing three-pointer by Bando and layup by Brenner to alert the team and bring the crowd to life and put the Ducks ahead at the end of the quarter, 18-14.
The second quarter started off strong, and with a couple three-point shots from Cooper and Cazorla, Oregon quickly widened the gap to 10 points in the first two minutes. The team was passing well and found their niche, going on a 12-2 run, with Cooper and Cazorla sinking in their 3-point jumpers and Alleyne drawing fouls, bringing in points from the line.
After a layup by Tate-Defreitas 4 minutes into the quarter, Hampton went scoreless for a full five minutes until Jordan was able to put the team back on the board and end the Ducks' run. The Ducks outscored Hampton tremendously in the second quarter, collecting five times the points at 20-4.
With a 20-point lead of 38-18 going into the second half of the game, there was little hope for Hampton to come back and match this team's offensive force.
And of course, it did not stop there for the Ducks. This was the quarter of Kat Cooper, as Kat sunk in two 3-pointers, collecting her fourth three in the game with 3:50 left on the clock. The Ducks went on a 9-2 run, and brought out their bench to finish the job giving Oregon their biggest lead of the night, 62-33.
Tate-Defreit killed it for Hampton, going into beast-mode in the fourth quarter with a back-to-back jumper and 3-pointer in efforts to catch up to the Ducks. Though she had some support from her team, trying to catch up to Oregon was no easy feat for this leading scorer to complete on her own.
Though Tate-Defreit and her team were able to keep up the pace, scoring 11 to Oregon's 12 with 4 minutes remaining, the team made the mistake of giving up too many needless fouls, fouling eight times in the quarter allowing Cooper, Alleyne, and Gildon to go to the line. From there, the Pirates were outscored in the quarter 24-18.
Malia Tate-Defreitas was the star for Hampton tonight, with 16 points and 6 rebounds. Kat Cooper was the leading scorer for Oregon, collecting 16 points and Jillian Alleyne impressed as always, with a 14-10 double-double, putting her as the new all-time leader over Bev Smith in rebounds with 1,367.
The team worked well as a unit in this game, elevating their passing throughout tonight's contest, and ending the night with 24 assists.
"Hampton's a good team. It's a team that's been to the NCAA tournament I think four or five years, five championships in a row and are going to win their league again," said Head Coach Kelly Graves. "So I think for our first two games to play and beat two teams, that are going to be in the tournament later on, I think is significant and a nice start to the season."
When it comes to their passing game, coach Graves finds it of utmost importance. "We preach unselfishness with the basketball and passing is one of our (focuses). That's why I was a little disappointed we had 16 turnovers, because that's also part of being a good passing team. We run passing drills every single day, because it's something that's real key to us."
But Graves was extremely proud of Jillian's success, coach commented on her new record tonight, exclaiming- "That's pretty neat. Those are two classy women, I mean Bev Smith and Jillian Alleyne I think any program would be happy to have them as faces of the program and so that's quite an accomplishment."
The Ducks check off another win for the books now 2-0, elevating the high from their upset against UNC.