Washington State Cougars Mount Surprising Rally to Beat UC Santa Clara

The Washington State Cougars erased an 11-point deficit to beat UC Santa Clara 69-68 with an unlikely rally.

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Lost in the shuffle with the possible Holiday Bowl boycott and the disappointing Washington Huskies across the state was the Washington State Cougars defeating UC Santa Clara on a last-second block by Charles Callison. It looked bleak with about six minutes left in the game, with the Cougs down 11, but the two teams traded bricks for about two minutes, which is wont to happen in a game between two not-so-good teams.

But then Washington State Cougars forward Josh Hawkinson converted a three-point play and the rally was on. Ernie Kent’s defense clamped down on Santa Clara for the rest of the game, and while they couldn’t score consistently at all, they managed to keep the Broncos off the scoreboard and put up just enough points to get the one-point win.

All in all, the Washington State Cougars managed a 16-4 run in the closing minutes keyed by the defense to defeat a bad WCC opponent on the road. Expectations are low for the Cougars this season after finishing deep in the basement of the Pac-12 last year, and it a bad WCC team shouldn’t have given a Pac-12 team as much trouble as the Broncos did yesterday.

However, the Cougars at least have something going for them that their cross-state rivals, the Huskies, don’t appear to have: the will to maybe play some defense. The Huskies take on the Western Michigan Broncos today, and have looked massively disappointing so far this season. With the Cougars’ effort and grit yesterday against Santa Clara, Washington State has shown that although they have inferior talent to Washington, they are at least willing to slap the floor and get their hands up on defense in crucial moments in games.

The Washington State Cougars return home to Pullman to face Sacramento State on Wednesday night.

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