Rogers, Sabally leads Oregon women to road victory at Washington

Coming off two wins against top 10 teams, the Oregon Ducks were looking to maintain their momentum against the Washington Huskies on Friday night.

While the Ducks got a tougher matchup than they anticipated, they were able to come away with a close victory on the road.

Oregon (10-5, 2-1 Pac-12) defeated Washington (5-6, 0-3) 68-61 at Alaska Airlines Arena in Seattle.

Endyia Rogers led all scorers with 23 points on 8-for-16 shooting. Nyara Sabally also chipped in 20 points and seven rebounds for Oregon. The Ducks won the game despite Te-Hina Paopao, who is the second-leading scorer (14.3), finishing with only seven points.

"I'm happy that we won the game, I loved how we finished the game," Oregon coach Kelly Graves said. "I thought defensively, we did a great job down the stretch, made some plays, turned them over a bit and got some easy run-outs in transition.

"I wish we would have gotten them earlier, but you will take them anytime. In the end, it was a good road win against a good Washington team. They came ready to play and gave us all we could handle.”

Oregon came away victorious despite shooting 41% from the field. The Ducks also shot 27% from beyond the 3-point line.

Entering Friday's game, the Ducks were shooting 37.6% from long-range, which is 12th in the nation. The game was close during the last couple of minutes until Oregon went on a 6-0 run, putting the Ducks up eight with 41.4 seconds left.

"Washington did a great job, they're a really good team," Sabally said. "They play really hard and have good players. We kind of struggled a little with that.

"It was kind of weird that every time we seemed to get a little bit going, we would just fall out of it. You just have days like that, and we talked about it in the locker room. We can't come out like that again, we need to be more aggressive.

"I think it was our aggressiveness that was lacking today. And then coming out and being ready to play and forgetting about last weekend because now we have to move forward and win games.”

After Monday's game against Connecticut, there was a question whether Sabally would play against Washington. She suffered a knee injury with less than five minutes left in the game.

Despite that, Sabally practiced leading up to the matchup against Washington as she continued her scorching play. What might have been more impressive than her points was Sabally's four steals against Washington.

In her last six games, Sabally is averaging 15.3 points per game. Sabally told the media she was relieved her knee injury wasn't as serious as some might have thought.

"Every time I go down with my knee, it always comes as a shock and I tend to go to the worse place possible," Sabally said. "I'm just glad and super happy that I can be on the court and be playing.

"That's something that I used to take for granted, but I don't anymore. Every game counts, every game I get to play in is a blessing for me. Just being on the court with my teammates means everything to me and it means a lot that my knee held up."

Up next

Oregon will return to Matthew Knight Arena for the start of three consecutive games at home. The Ducks will host the Utah Utes on Wednesday, Jan. 26 in a make-up game that was previously scheduled for Dec. 31.

Then Oregon will host UCLA on Friday, Jan. 28 before finishing the homestand against USC on Jan. 30

Contact Register-Guard sportswriter Antwan Staley at astaley@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @antwanstaley.

This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Rogers, Sabally leads Oregon women to road victory at Washington