Malika Andrews |
There wasn’t a single player in a purple jersey smiling when the buzzer hit zero on the Pilots’ 15th straight loss.
Junior Corissa Turley sat on the bench and picked at her right sleeve. The coaching staff stayed glued to its clipboards, where they scribbled notes furiously. You could have heard a pin drop.
Portland fell to St. Mary’s 78-51 on Saturday afternoon in the Chiles Center, marking the team’s third conference loss by at least 20 points. The loss, which extended the program’s longest losing streak of the last 14 years, dropped Portland to 0-9 in WCC play. The Gaels improved to 7-2.
Despite the demoralizing scene, head coach Cheryl Sorenson said that Saturday’s game was just a “bump in the road.”
Bumps and potholes in the road has been the theme of the 2015-2016 season and has left the Pilots’ tires deflated. Turley and senior Sara Hernandez were sidelined with injuries and Portland’s leading scorer, Ellie Woerner, was injured early in the game.
“I think it was tough, but from the way that they’ve been playing, spirited and determined, this was more of just a little slip,” Sorenson said.
The players' faces said differently. This wasn’t a slip. This was another piece of a trend, a tradition. It feels as though losses are expected.
While Darian Slaga led Portland with 10 points, this was not a competitive game in its decisive stretches. The Pilots were outscored by 48 points in Slaga’s minutes.
Junior transfer Holly Blades added 9 points, including three from beyond the arc.
Devon Brookshire led the way for St. Mary’s with 14 points and nine rebounds. The Gaels shot almost 50 percent from the field while the Pilots shot only 33 percent.
The Gaels outscored the Pilots 30-16 in points in the paint. St. Mary’s was able to scored 19 second-chance points while Portland recorded only five.
With 1:30 remaining McDonald splashed in a 3-pointer to extend St. Mary’s lead 76-49. Junior Rachelle Owens answered, dropping in a Stephen Curry-style reverse lay-up with 3.3 seconds remaining to give Portland a pretty ending to an ugly night.
Next up, the Pilots head back out of the road to take on San Francisco and Santa Clara.
Malika Andrews is the sports editor for The Beacon. She can be reached at andrewsm17@up.edu or on Twitter @malika_andrews.
