The Women of Troy exploded or 47 second half points to thump Oregon 85-63 Saturday afternoon at Matthew Knight Arena. The loss dropped the Ducks to 12-12 on the season and a disappointing 3-10 in Pac-10 play.

Still without sparkplug Nia Jackson, head coach Paul Westhead once again went with the youth option for his starting lineup, sending three freshmen out for the opening tip, including Ariel Thomas in her fourth career start as Jackson's replacement at point guard.

For nearly thirty minutes he had to be pleased with the result, the Ducks played hard and the youngsters showed themselves to be up to the task. Thomas led the team in scoring with 16 points, showing a good outside shot and a willingness to lower her head and attack on the dribble.

Fellow freshmen Deanna Weaver was close behind, hitting for 15 points, including 4-10 from long distance and forward Danielle Love tied for the team lead with 8 rebounds.

USC built a seven point lead six minutes into the opening stanza and mostly held the advantage until extending it to nine, 35-26 five minutes before the break.

Amanda Johnson hit a jumper from the wing and made both free throws when fouled on Oregon's next possession. Weaver's trey-ball cut the USC advantage to a bucket before settling for a 38-35 halftime deficit.

After the Trojans opened the second half with a flurry of their own to push their lead back to seven points, 42-35, Thomas and the Ducks began to find opportunities to push the tempo back at USC, holding the Trojans scoreless for nearly four minutes.

Oregon's run was fueled completely on the shoulders of the three freshmen. Thomas made a pair of free throws, then Tatiana Thomas (no relation) threaded a nifty pass through the defense to hit Love in stride from the weak side for a lay-up.

Love rebounded the next two USC misfires and finding Ariel Thomas in transition for a deuce with the first and for a three ball with the second.

Weaver's lay-up capped Oregon's 11-0 run and with score now in Oregon's favor 46-42 USC head coach Michael Cooper was forced to take a thirty-second time out. Whatever words were imparted must have been something Vince Lombardi like, the Trojans blasted Oregon 43-17 the rest of the way.

In the end the stat sheet was equally as lopsided. USC held a 53-34 advantage on the glass, including 19 on the offensive end, leading to 40 points in the paint and 20 second chance points. USC also converted 17 Oregon turnovers into 21 points.

Oregon shot 21-64 (32.8%) from the floor and hit only 10-33 in the second half.

"No excuses," said head coach Paul Westhead. "I think our team played as hard as they could. They played well - certainly in the first half, good offensive execution, defensively fine, chasing down on the break not giving up second shots. If there is a problem . we struggle sustaining good play."

"If you are going to beat teams like USC - I don't know if you have to play 40 minutes but you have to play a high thirty."

"(In the) second half we kind of broke down a half dozen times on defense, we started missing shots so that combo - that's a tough one to recover from."

Asked what triggered the USC onslaught Ariel Thomas said, "It went back to they got rebounds and they started hitting their shots and we started to hang our heads."

". Basketball is a game of runs, every time someone scores you can't go ?oh - we're down', we have to keep pushing through it and just play our offense because that's what we're meant to do. That's something we have to work on, that's a level of maturity I have to get to."

"We are frustrated that we keep losing," allowed Weaver. "But we can't let that affect us. We just have to learn from these losses and keep pushing forward."

With no set date for Jackson's return and the season nearing the end, it is likely the three youngsters will be given extended opportunity to do just that and the good news is Oregon's next opponent is the team they last beat, Oregon State. But that was the Matthew Knight Arena debut for the ladies, this contest will be in Corvallis.

"Civil War is always important," said Tatiana Thomas. "We're just going to take everything that we've learned over the past couple of weeks into the game. The last time we played against them we played great, It is always a big game so we are coming out ready to fight and win . this is a little more personal obviously it hits a little closer to home . so we are going to be aggressive."