UW women win 27th in row vs. WSU
Cougars coach Daugherty 0-3 against former team
SEATTLE – Sami Whitcomb scored 17 points, 13 in the second half, to lead Washington to a 71-58 victory over Washington State in a Pac-10 opener Saturday for its 27th straight win over the Cougars.
The Huskies (5-6, 1-0) bested the Cougars (7-5, 0-1) for the 16th consecutive time on their home court. The Cougars haven’t won a game in the series since February 1995 and haven’t won against Washington in Seattle since January 1993.
April Cook, one of three freshmen in the Cougars’ starting lineup, had 17 points. Jazmine Perkins, another WSU starting freshman, added 12 points.
The Cougars lost their third game in a row after a five-game winning streak.
The Huskies came back after trailing by eight points early in the game. They closed out the opening half with a 15-4 run, including nine straight points that took them from a 24-22 deficit into a 31-24 lead.
Sarah Morton hit a pair free throws to lift Washington into a tie at 24. Then Michelle Augustavo made two free throws to put the Huskies ahead to stay at 26-24.
Ahead 37-28 at halftime, Washington hit its first four shots and scored the first 12 points of the second half, extending its lead to 49-28.
Washington State missed its first seven shots in the second half and went nearly 3 1/2 minutes without scoring before Cook connected on a 3-pointer.
Current Washington State coach June Daugherty accounted for 22 of the wins in the Huskies’ current streak against the Cougars when she coached at Washington from 1996-2007. Now in her second season at Washington State, Daugherty is 0-3 against her former team.
“We came out like gangbusters and played hard, but with about five minutes to go before halftime, we kind of relaxed too much on defense,” said Daugherty, whose team shot just 30 percent from the floor (19 of 63) and only 47 percent from the foul line (16 of 34).