As the Thomas Fire continues to rear its ugly head in the Santa Barbara area, the woes of regular season play are all too familiar for the UCSB Women’s basketball team.

With their 74-49 Saturday night loss to Oregon State at the Moda Center, the Gauchos extend their losing streak to eight games. Although the last two losses have come at the hands of ranked opponents (No. 7 UCLA, No. 17 OSU), their record is tainted nonetheless.

Santa Barbara is now 1-8 in the regular season and with only 3 games remaining before conference play begins, the Gauchos have limited time to turn their season around.

Oregon State, on the other hand, has won 5 straight games and moves to 8-2 on the year. The Beavers are ranked 17th in the nation and will look to continue their strong regular season before starting competitive Pac-12 conference play.

Saturday night’s game was held at the Moda Center in Portland, the home to the NBA’s Portland Trailblazers, for the Dam City Classic in which both the Men’s and Women’s OSU basketball teams compete.

The game between UCSB and OSU started with a three-pointer made by freshman guard Danae Miller, giving Santa Barbara the early 3-0 lead. The Beavers responded with a trio of unanswered layups to take the 6-3 lead with 7:18 remaining in the first quarter of play.

Unfortunately for the Gauchos, their early 3-0 lead would be their sole lead of the night. The low-scoring quarter was rounded out by a pair of buckets by Miller and senior forward Drew Edelman, while the Beavers used a well-rounded scoring effort to lead 14-7 heading into the second quarter.

UCSB struggled shooting the ball to start the game, notching a sub-par shooting percentage of 15 percent from the floor and an even worse 12 percent from beyond the arc.

In the second quarter, Santa Barbara managed to score 11 points, all from Edelman and redshirt sophomore Tal Sahar.

Edelman finished the game with 10 points and 4 rebounds, while Sahar led the Gauchos with a season-high 11 points and 7 boards despite shooting 5-17 from the field and going 1-9 from beyond the arc.

Edelman and Sahar were the lone Gauchos to score in double figures. Oregon State heated up in the second, exploding for 27 points to build a 41-18 lead at the half. Another diversified scoring effort for OSU saw seven Beavers score, led by an 8-point quarter for Kat Tudor.

Tudor was one of four Beavers to score in double figures on the night, posting 14 points for her team. Center Marie Gulich added 6 in the quarter as part of her 10-point night to go along with 6 boards.

Santa Barbara regrouped during halftime and was able to put together a 19-point third quarter effort. Sarah Porter, a redshirt junior, scored all of her 6 points in the third.

Two made jumpers by Sahar and then a Sarah Porter three-ball got things rolling for the Gauchos and cut the Beaver lead to 18; however, OSU maintained its composure to keep Santa Barbara at bay.

OSU guard Aleah Goodman scored 8 of her game-high 17 points in the quarter and the Beavers shot 60 percent from three to subdue Santa Barbara’s brief attempts at making runs. The quarter ended with the Beavers up 62-37 and hopes of a UCSB comeback minimal.

The fourth quarter saw both teams score 12 points, despite much of those baskets falling during garbage time. With the sound of the final buzzer, OSU held on to beat Santa Barbara 74-49.

On the night, UCSB held its own in the paint, tying the Beavers for 26 points in the paint and only being outrebounded 34-33.

An issue for the Gauchos was perhaps their poor shooting effort, going only 22-66 from the field, but also the fact that they failed to reach the free throw line.

While Santa Barbara committed 19 personal fouls, OSU was only called for 3 fouls. The Beavers shot 52.9 percent overall and 56.3 percent from three-point territory in an efficient night finding the net.

Despite the loss to the Beavers, the Gauchos will turn around to face Loyola Marymount at LMU on Monday.

The game, which was rescheduled from its original date of December 7th due to conditions created by the Thomas Fire, will tip off at 7:00pm.

Santa Barbara will look to get their second win of the season against a talented LMU team and use their experiences against top-25 teams in moving forward.