The WSU Cougars are getting set to end their four-game road trip as they take on the Oregon State Beavers at 2 p.m. Sunday in Corvallis, Oregon.

The Cougars now have one more away game before they are granted back-to-back home games, both of which are against the top team in the Pac-12, the No. 5 Stanford Cardinals.

“That’s why we want to be in this league, we want to compete against the very best,” head coach Kamie Ethridge said.

That’s exactly what the Cougs have done this year. Currently, the Cougs are ranked fifth in the conference. At the beginning of the year, the team was projected to finish in last place.

With that being said, the team has also lost their first-ever AP Top 25 ranking following their loss to UCLA and have struggled offensively in the first half over the past few weeks.

“We dig ourselves a bit of a hole,” Ethridge said. “We give [opponents] too much credit in the first half where we just panic and don’t even try to run some of our stuff.”

Ethridge acknowledged the slow starts and took the blame for them, but she also praised her team for their ability to keep the game close.

“I continued to be amazed at this team’s fight, and competitiveness and [ability] to defend at a high level,” Ethridge said.

WSU’s defense has held opponents to an average of under 64 points a game this year, while the offense creates a six-point scoring margin in favor of WSU, averaging 70 points per game.

Freshman guard Charlisse Leger-Walker leads the Pac-12 in points per game, averaging 19.7. She is also the team’s leading scorer and stealer.

The Oregon State Beavers (3-4, 1-4) were ranked 21st in the nation the last time they played the Cougs. They have since only lost one game, however that one game was the only game the team played for an entire month.

The Beaver’s loss at Arizona on Jan. 17 was the first game Oregon State played since their loss to WSU in Beasley back in December.

After the 61-55 Cougar victory, Oregon State had six games in a row that were postponed, until finally playing, and losing to Arizona. Their game against the University of Washington scheduled to be on the 22nd of this month has also been postponed.

Technically, the Beavers are on a four-game losing streak, but with a total of eight games this season being either canceled or postponed, the losing streak must extend past the court for the Beavers.

Oregon State has struggled with COVID-19 issues, the same way WSU did at the start of the season.

However, Oregon State’s most recent contest, which was supposed to be against the University of Washington on Friday, was postponed due to COVID-19 issues within the Huskies program, not the Beavers.

The game will commence from the Beaver’s home court in Corvallis, Oregon, and will be the first time Oregon State has hosted any opponent since mid-December.

Tip-off is at 2 p.m. The game can be viewed live on WSUcougars.com.