The Huskies’ school-record losing streak is finally over.

With a 59-49 victory over UCLA (15-9, 6-7 Pac-10), the UW women's basketball team (6-18, 2-12 Pac-10) has turned their 12-game losing slump into a one-game “undefeation.”

“Instead of undefeated, [it’s] undefeation; it’s a phrase that we have made up,” junior guard Sami Whitcomb said. “We are 1-0 right now, undefeation.”

The Huskies’ were visibly light after their first win in 13 games, and they didn’t mind elaborating on their phrase.

“Sara Mosiman and Heidi McNeill coined it,” Whitcomb said of the term. “The word was made a long time ago, when we started Pac-10 and we beat Wazzu, we were undefeation then. So we’re just trying to bring it back.”

Even UW head coach Tia Jackson, often glum after many of the losses, seemed more cheery after the game.

“[The players are] trying to figure out a way to throw a party at my house, but it ain’t happening,” Jackson said.

Defense was the order of the day, with the Huskies limiting the Bruins to just 49 points – their best defensive performance on the season – and 17-57 shooting on the night.

“We knew that we generally force 23 turnovers a game and [we] wanted to be pretty much on that,” Jackson said. “And we wanted to mix up our defenses and felt we could confuse them, especially with Doreena Campbell out of the game."

UCLA's point guard, Campbell, is the Bruins’ leading scorer.

The Huskies played a zone defense that forced 11 steals and 23 Bruin turnovers and it seemed to confuse the UCLA players.

“Them recognizing the different defense that we were in was taking them a little time to figure it out, so we took advantage of that,” Jackson said. “They didn’t sub all of their shooters into the game until roughly about the last two minutes of the game. By that time, they weren’t warm enough to get hot.”

Although the Huskies held a game-high 14-point lead with 11:50 left in the second half, the Bruins still cut it to five points with 4:13 remaining.

“I didn’t even realize that they cut it that much,” Whitcomb said. “[That] we still had the lead was the biggest thing we needed to focus on.”

The Huskies did regroup and went on a 9-4 run to end the game with the 59-49 win.

On the offensive end, the Huskies were unable to get guards Whitcomb and Kristi Kingma going – they scored six and eight points, respectively – but center Laura McLellan took advantage and netted a game-high 16 points.

“She capitalized on what our game plan was; we wanted to use our posts to as much as we could to relieve some pressure on our guards,” Jackson said. “Collectively, our post players are doing a decent job and each game it might be someone different but Laura, today, it was her game.”

McLellan reminisced on last season’s home finale, a 74-66 upset of California, comparing Friday night’s game as a tribute to Husky seniors McNeill and Michelle Augustavo.

“I remember last year when we beat Cal; that was like the best thing we could’ve done for our seniors then.” McLellan said. “If you can’t do it for anyone, do it for the people that aren’t going to have another chance, another season.”

So the celebration is on for the Huskies, at least until midnight, Whitcomb said.

“We have to enjoy this because we’ve been wanting this for so long; we’ve been working for it,” Whitcomb said. “At the same time, we have to be ready for the next game. We want to keep the streak going, we want to keep winning. We have to stay focused and remember that USC is a great team.”

The Huskies face off against the Trojans tomorrow in what will be the Dawgs' final home game.

Reach reporter Honsen Lin at sports@dailyuw.com.