ASU Women’s Basketball: Sun Devils pull off second upset of the weekend against No. 3 Oregon State

After stunning No. 2 Oregon on Friday night, the Arizona State Sun Devils (12-4, 2-2 Pac-12) pulled off another upset Sunday afternoon.

The Sun Devils took down No. 3 Oregon State Beavers (15-1, 3-1 Pac-12) 55-47. This was the first time since 2010 that an unranked NCAA team knocked off AP top-five teams in consecutive games.

“Did I believe that we could win both?” head coach Charli Turner Thorne said. “Yes. I thought we had been playing better every game. We lost by one possession at UCLA. We’ve been playing better, so I felt good that we could have success this weekend.”

Oregon State jumped out to a 4-0 run to start the game off, but the Sun Devil defense was able to come up with some big stops and quickly got things going offensively. They ended the quarter with a 13-4 lead. Senior forward Jamie Ruden contributed seven of the 13 points.

The Sun Devils held their lead for the second and third quarters.

Things got close again with a few minutes left in the contest. Oregon State scored seven consecutive points to tie things up at 45 with just under three minutes. It was the first time the Sun Devils didn’t have the lead since the first quarter.

Senior guard Robbi Ryan got things started for the Sun Devils with a layup ended with a 10-2 run. Senior guard Reili Richardson had six straight free throws sealing the victory.

“We’re tough,” Turner Thorne said. “We’ve had close games and we’ve had a tough preseason schedule. We had a couple timeouts, but we have veteran guards that know how to come down and execute. I think we showed great poise.

“It’s not like this is our first close game. It was nice to pull it out, cause we started conference a little slow. You love to win the close games.”

After tying the game, Oregon State went 1-for-5 and committed two turnovers.

“Coach made sure she told us they get no more” senior forward Ja’Tavia Tapley said. “We made sure we played as hard as we can on defense.”

The team felt something special coming into Sunday’s contest after their big win against Oregon.

“I think the cool thing about the Oregon game is that is showed that we have great fight in us,” said Ruden. “That gives me a ton of confidence in our team, just knowing that we can really fight when it comes down to the wire. In the fourth quarter, we finished really strong at the Oregon. I had an excitement and energy for this (game) because I knew it was going to be similar game.”

Tapley finished the game with 14 points and six rebounds. Richardson and Ryan had 10 a piece, with Ruden adding nine.

The Sun Devils will head to Seattle to face the Washington Huskies on Friday at 8 p.m. MST.