After slim win in exhibition opener, Beaver women ‘have so much to do right now’

Senior Catarina Ferreira, a transfer from Baylor, will likely fill the role as the first player off the Beaver bench (courtesy Dominic Cusimano)

CORVALLIS — When the 2024-25 season concludes for the Oregon State women, Coach Scott Rueck is expecting a different look than the one his team showed Friday night in its exhibition opener.

A much different look.

“We are a fraction of the team that we are going to be,” Rueck told me.

The Beavers will have to be, or it’s going to be a long season.

A 59-51 victory over Westmont College — a Division II program from Santa Barbara, Calif., that was 12-16 a year ago — at Gill Coliseum will hardly strike fear into the hearts of Oregon State’s new sister schools in the West Coast Conference.

Beaver Nation knew it was going to be a different world after Rueck lost his top six players and seven overall from the OSU team that went 27-8 and reached the Elite Eight in 2023-24.

Those players transferred to various schools across the country, evidently to avoid being a part of the switch to a new conference after the demise of the Pac-12 as we have known it. Raegan Beers (Oklahoma), Timea Gardiner (UCLA), Talia von Oelhoffen (USC), Donovyn Hunter (TCU), Lily Hansford (Iowa State), Dominika Paurova (Kentucky) and Adlee Blacklock (Texas Tech) all departed, leaving the program in shambles and their coach in a lurch.

Rueck recruited six players to go with five holdovers, knowing that there would be plenty of kinks to work out during the early season. Those kinks showed up on the offensive end Friday against a game, pesky, scrappy Westmont bunch that rallied from an 18-point third-quarter deficit and forced Rueck to use his starters to the end.

Oregon State shot .345 from the field (19 for 55), including only 5 for 22 (.227) from 3-point range. The Beavers were 2 for 12 in the first quarter and 2 for 11 in the final period in a shooting display that was somewhere between inadequate and downright frigid.

“For us to be the team we are going to be, we have to improve our offensive flow,” Rueck said. “There is a lot of stuff in (the players’) heads right now. We have had to throw a lot at them, and there is too much thinking going on and not enough just playing.”

The Beavers won it with defense and at the free-throw line, where they made 16 of 22 attempts to Westmont’s 6 of 10. The Warriors shot .333 from the field (19 for 57) and were 7 for 19 (.357) from deep. The Beavers forced eight of 13 turnovers after intermission and blocked seven shots.

“(Oregon State’s players) have committed to (defense),” Rueck said. “That stuck from a year ago. Last year’s team embraced that side of the ball. It needs to be our calling card, especially as we are growing offensively.”

Oregon State won the rebound battle only 40-34 despite a decided height advantage over a Westmont team that had no player taller than 6-2. Seniors Sela Heide (6-7) and Kelsey Rees (6-5) had their moments but certainly didn’t dominate the middle.

Senior forward Kelsey Rees collected 16 points and 12 rebounds in the Beavers’ opener against Westmont (courtesy Dominic Cusimano)

Westmont led through the early going and trailed only 14-12 at the end of the first quarter. The Warriors were on top 20-16 midway through the second period but were outscored 13-4 to go into the half behind 29-24.

The Beavers’ lead was 31-29 when they went on the surge that made the difference, scoring 10 straight points and going on a 20-4 run to make it 51-33 late in the third quarter. They outscored the Warriors 24-16 in the quarter.

“We got a taste of what we could be,” Rueck said.

Westmont didn’t die, though, and the Beavers went cold, scoring only six points in the fourth quarter as the visitors inched back to within six points in the final minute. The issue wasn’t decided until Tiara Bolden sank a pair of free throws with 10.8 seconds left for the game’s final points.

When I asked Rueck what happened in the final period, he shrugged.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “We had some tough possessions … a drought. The game felt different during that stretch for whatever reason.”

Then he made reference to Westmont’s role as the ultimate underdog.

“It’s easy to play when you have nothing to lose,” he said. “They got comfortable, hit a couple of shots, and momentum went to them.”

Rueck is starting four of his five returnees — seniors Heide, Rees and AJ Marotte and sophomore point guard Kennedie Shuler. The fifth starter Friday was Bolden, a 5-11 senior from Eugene’s Churchill High who transferred from La Salle, where she averaged 7 points and 3.9 rebounds last season. Bolden made only 2 of 7 shots from the field, contributing seven points and three rebounds in 23 minutes.

Sophomore point guard Kennedie Shuler will be a key performer for the Beavers this season (courtesy Dominic Cusimano)

Rees finished with 16 points and 12 rebounds, with 10 points and five boards coming in the decisive third quarter. Marotte, the only returning starter, had 16 points and six rebounds in her game-high 36 minutes. They were both active at the defensive end, too.

“Kelsey and AJ were a huge part of that tonight,” Rueck observed. “Kennedie is an excellent defender, and you can bring in Tiara and Cat (Ferreira), and you also have a 6-8 kid at the rim (Heide) slowing things down.”

Catarina Ferreira is a 6-foot senior from Brazil who transferred from Baylor, a team that went 26-8 last season, losing to Southern Cal in the Sweet Sixteen. Ferreira was an end-of-the-bench reserve for the Bears, scoring 18 points in 15 games, but will likely be the sixth player this season for OSU. She was 1 for 7 from the field against Westmont and finished with five points and four rebounds in 22 minutes.

The other reserves are Lucia Navarro, a 6-foot sophomore from Spain who saw action in five games as a freshman at Florida State last season; Cloe Vecina, a 5-8 freshman from Spain who played with her country’s U18 team a year ago; Elisa Mehyar, a 6-5 freshman from Denmark who played with her country’s U18 team; Susana Yepes, a 6-foot junior from Colombia who redshirted at OSU last season, and Ally Schimel, a 5-10 freshman walk-on from Corbett High, where she was Oregon 3A Player of the Year and led her team to the state championship in 2023-24.

Rueck said his other recruit — Mackenzie Shivers, 5-6 junior from Mesa (Ariz.) JC — underwent surgery on Thursday and is likely lost for the season. (The coach did not indicate on what body part the player had surgery). Shivers was the No. 2 scorer (10.9 points per game) and shot .349 from 3-point range for a team that went 28-7 and placed third in the NJCAA Division II championships a year ago.

Coach Scott Rueck enters his 15th season at the OSU helm with plenty of uncertainty (courtesy Dominic Cusimano)

Judging from Friday’s game, the Beavers may use a 10-player rotation, with Ferreira, Yepes, Schimel, Navarro and Vecina on the second unit. Mehyar did not play and might be headed for a redshirt season.

I asked Rueck which of the newcomers might contribute the most this season.

“Tiara did not shoot well tonight, but she is capable,” he said. “Cat has the ability to create. Sue (Yepes) can really shoot it. Learning what it takes to be productive on defense is her hurdle. A redshirt year helps you, but it’s not real. You’re not out there suffering the consequences of your mistakes.

“Cloe, our backup point guard, is an excellent playmaker, but it just takes awhile. And Kennedy needs these reps. She is able to play 40 minutes if we need her to.”

The other newcomer to the program, of course, is Sydney Weise, the former Beaver great from the 2016 Final Four team who has played professionally since then. Weise joins Rueck’s coaching staff, which includes another starter on the 2016 team — Deven Hunter — and Eric Ely.

In the WCC Coaches Poll, Oregon State was picked to finish fourth behind Gonzaga, Washington State and Portland. The Beavers play one conference game before Christmas — at Pacific on Dec. 5 — but open the conference season in earnest with another pair of road games, at Gonzaga on Dec. 28 and against Portland at Chiles Center on Dec. 30. The Zags were 32-4 overall and 16-0 in winning the WCC regular-season title last season; the Pilots were 21-13 and 10-6 and made it to the NCAA Tournament.

Before those two important league tilts, Rueck has lined up a challenging non-conference schedule, with only three home games before January. The Beavers face Minnesota and Arizona State in back-to-back games at Tempe, Ariz.; play at Illinois; go up against Connecticut — which lost to Iowa 71-69 in the Final Four a year ago — and another opponent at Nassau, Bahamas in the Continental Tire Baha Mar Championship, then square off with Western Kentucky and Miami at Maui.

“We are going to be toughened up in a big way,” Rueck said.

But, as Heide noted, the destinations aren’t exactly Topeka, Kansas, or Des Moines, Iowa.

“We get to go to some pretty nice places,” she said. “And the road can be a bonding experience. Since we are spending so much time together, it will be a good time to continue to get to know each other and grow as a team off the court.”

Rueck figures his team needs it. During the summer of ’23, the Beavers took their once-in-four-years trip to Italy.

“This is Italy from a year ago,” he said. “This right now is a team that is new to each other and learning how to play with each other on the court for the first time. Everybody is in a different role this year. Different expectations, different everything. It’s a lot to learn to be cohesive in four or five weeks (of practice).”

I asked Rueck if he wants his team to run more than it did Friday night.

“I want to run all the time,” he said. “That’s why I liked the third quarter. The pace of the game was more in our favor. We got out and pushed it a bit. But there’s a lot in their brains, so it just takes time. It’s just going to be step by step.”

In his 15th year at Oregon State and his 29th as a head coach overall, Rueck said he is enjoying this group of players.

“There are no egos,” he said. “There is a willingness to do what it takes to give us the greatest chance to reach our potential. We have size inside, we have really good ballhandling on the perimeter, we have wings who can shoot it and pass, we have good overall athleticism. Because of that, we are very versatile.

“The (players are) going to grow. I believe they will stay together through each moment of adversity that comes. I am anticipating that we will get better every minute of every game.”

That last part is pure Coachspeak. There will be peaks and valleys to this season. Rueck and his assistants will coach them up, and they will get better. Marotte and Rees will be the best players and leaders, and Shuler will be an important piece. She is a good defender and distributor but needs to get over her reluctance to take a perimeter shot, or defenders will sag back and dare her to shoot.

At least a couple of the newcomers must step up and assume a major role off the bench. The offense will have to pick up or the Beavers will get steamrolled by the better teams.

Gone is the talent that might have been able to carry Oregon State to a Final Four berth this season. It’s a different world for Rueck now.

“Different, but the same,” he told me. “It’s still teaching and coaching. It’s still helping a group reach its potential. The faces change, but the culture and the program stays the same.”

The coach will compete, and his players will, too. The challenge is just beginning.

“We have so much to do right now,” Rueck said, “to be what we can be.”

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