Junior guard Tahnee Balerio poured home a career-best 39 points to lead an injury-plagued Missouri State Lady Bears basketball squad to a much-needed 71-56 victory over Oregon Saturday afternoon at Hammons Student Center. Balerio scored 11 points in a critical 13-4 Missouri State run that turned a three-point Lady Bear lead into a 58-46 advantage with just over six minutes remaining in the game.
With Missouri State leading, 45-42 with 12:17 left on the clock, Balerio drained her fourth three-pointer of the contest to push the margin to six points, then coolly sank another trey on the Lady Bears’ next trip down the court to extend the lead to 51-44 at the 10:38 mark. The Buhler, Kan., native capped the scoring spurt with a jumper that put Missouri State up by 12 and essentially sealed the Lady Bears’ third win of the season, as Oregon would get no closer than eight points the rest of the way.
In all, Balerio scored 22 of her 39 points in the second stanza and finished the game 10-of-15 from the floor, including 5-of-7 from beyond the three-point arc. She knocked down 14 free throws and hauled in eight rebounds to surpass her career-best figures in those categories as well.
Missouri State led 37-36 at the break behind Balerio’s 17 points despite being outshot (.464 to .458) and outrebounded (22 to 10) in a first half that featured six ties and seven lead changes. Oregon raced out to a 12-3 lead before the Lady Bears went on a 12-1 run to take a 15-13 lead on Whitney Burgess’ jumper at the 11:30 mark. But the Ducks responded with an 11-3 spurt of their own to claim a six-point advantage on Carolyn Ganes’ short jumper with 7:37 to go in the half. Balerio and sophomore forward Breton Wyett combined to score 16 of the Lady Bears’ fi nal 19 points of the half, highlighted by a Balerio three-pointer that gave Missouri State a 35-34 lead with 1:01 left in the half.
Oregon struggled to establish an offensive rhythm in the second half, connecting on just 8-of-38 field-goal attempts and 1-of-17 shots from three-point range. The Lady Bears went 8-of-18 (.444) from the floor and hit 16-of-22 free-throw attempts after intermission to put the game away. For the game Missouri State shot 45.2% (19-of-42) from the field, 54.5% (6-of-11) from three-point range and went 27-of-38 (71.1%) from the charity stripe. The Ducks controlled the offensive boards throughout the contest, netting 16 on the night and finishing with a 42-36 total rebounding advantage.
Senior forward Eleanor Haring scored 19 points to lead Oregon before fouling out with just over one minute left in the game.
With the Lady Bears missing junior forward Tiff Terwelp and her 12.6 rebound per-game average due to injury, fresh-man center Ashley Lord fi lled in admirably, scoring seven points and grabbing a career-best 11 rebounds.
The Lady Bears will wrap up the non-conference portion of their schedule with a 7:05 p.m. contest against Western Illinois next Thursday, Dec. 21, at Hammons Student Center before kicking off Missouri Valley Conference play on Dec. 30 with a home game against Southern Illinois.
