With a first round defeat to USC in the Pac-12 conference tournament, the train that is the WSU women’s basketball team’s season has officially reached its last stop.

The Cougs needed to win back-to-back games in Seattle to ensure a finishing record of .500 and a bid to the NIT and they fell to the Trojans 77-73.

WSU (14-16, 5-13) surrendered a three-point halftime lead in a ballgame that conjured up all of its season-long struggles with a talented but inexperienced group of young players leading the charge.

In a game that featured 19 lead changes and 13 ties, the Cougs were again in a position to win the game with under two minutes to play.

 “Tonight’s result was reminiscent of how the season has been,” WSU Head Coach June Daugherty said in a postgame press conference. “All the tight ball games and last possessions. Unfortunately, we came out on the short end tonight. It is what it is and I can’t praise our four seniors enough for how much they’ve improved – for how they’ve taken this program and made it competitive in their time here.”

Suiting up just nine players as it continued to fight through eligibility issues, USC (19-12, 6-12) took the final lead of the game with 86 seconds left and the score tied at 70 via a deep jump shot by guard Sadie Edwards.

Freshman forward Borislava Hristova, who led in scoring with 24 points, had a chance to tie the game up for WSU after making a layup on a Trojan foul, but with 20 seconds remaining her free throw attempt rimmed out.

Free throw shooting, particularly down the stretch, again doomed the Cougs in a game they had within their grasp. WSU went 1-5 from the line in the final 33 seconds of regulation while USC hit five of six free throws in that same time period to close the book on the careers of Cougar seniors Dawnyelle Awa, Mariah Cooks, Taylor Edmondson and Alexas Williamson.

“I’ve been very, very fortunate to have four seniors in this program, who have led this young group,” Daugherty said. “They have led them through the ups and downs and last-possession games that we’ve gone through. I think it speaks values to their character as people. They’ve improved so much in this program… I can’t say enough about these seniors.”

Daugherty acknowledged that her team’s ability to rebound the basketball was the greatest x-factor in determining whether a conference game is won or lost in her news conference leading up to the game.

She said she was confident the Cougs could out-rebound the Trojans for a third-consecutive game. USC, however, secured 43 rebounds to WSU’s 26 and tallied 23 second chance points off of 17 offensive rebounds compared to the Cougs seven.

Led by graduate transfer Temi Fagbenle’s 18 points and 17 rebounds, USC navigated through the 20 turnovers it committed in the ballgame and 11 steals WSU secured.

The Cougs bench again outscored its opponent, this time 32-8 and was fueled by 12 points from Edmondson and another 10 from sophomore forward Louise Brown, though their lack of consistent scoring outside of Hristova was glorified in the discrepancy of scoring between the two starting lineups.

USC’s five starters accounted for 67 of its 77 points (.896) compared to 41 of 73 (.561) from WSU. Despite the Cougs shooting a higher field goal percentage (.483) than the Trojans (.466), the team with a more consistent scoring output and stronger presence on the game’s intangibles prevailed.

In what was the final game for the four WSU seniors, the bitter end was a trying way for a group that led the program back to the postseason for the first time since 1991 in 2014 and 2015, but their contributions in reviving the problem will not soon be lost.

“To be a senior on this team, with my teammates who have shaped me on and off the court, I’m so blessed,” Edmondson said after the game. “I’m with great people each and every day and I’m so thankful for that. I’m really thankful for the experience- the good and the bad.”