Despite all of the struggles the UW women’s basketball team has gone through this season, it could still count on a win over rival Washington State to clean up some of the mess from what has been a disappointing season.

The Huskies (7-21, 3-15 Pac-10) haven’t lost to WSU (11-17, 4-14 Pac-10) since Feb. 25, 1995 in Pullman. They continued that winning streak Friday, defeating the Cougars 62-55 for their 14th straight season sweep and 28th straight win over their rival.

Freshman Kristi Kingma was just four years old the last time the Huskies lost in the Palouse.

“I can’t even believe that,” Kingma said on radio station 1150 AM KKNW.

Kingma made one of the key plays in the final minutes that sealed the victory for the Dawgs. Down by one, 55-54, with 2:36 to go, she got free and drained a jumper to give the Huskies the lead — and the momentum.

Kingma said the situation near the end of the game was very similar to what the team worked on in practice during the week.

“It was exactly what happened in practice,” Kingma said. “I know that if I have a smaller defender on me, or even someone my height, I’m able to raise up against them, and that’s just what I did.”

Prior to this game, Kingma had been struggling with defenses keyed in on her. But she seemed to break through against the Cougars, scoring 13 points.

“I realized that [WSU guard Katie] Appleton was a slower defender, [and] I think I was just able to see the hole more, make some adjustments,” Kingma said.

Meanwhile, Washington’s leading scorer, Sami Whitcomb, felt pressure from opposing defenses as well and also made progress Friday, shooting 6-16 from the field and a perfect 4-4 from the charity stripe to lead the Huskies with 18 points.

“It’s nice to have her back,” UW head coach Tia Jackson said. “She’s been struggling a little bit for about three to four games. She came out with a chip on her shoulder, and I guess the entire team did, because when you’re playing the Cougars, it’s hard not to have one.”

In a back-and-forth game like Friday night’s grudge match — there were 13 ties and lead changes — momentum played a huge role as the teams went on game-changing scoring runs.

“[In] the last media time out, the message in the huddle was, ‘They just had their run and that’s it, it’s time for us to go run ours,’” Jackson said. “And we went back and forth for a while, and we took off from there.”

Reach reporter Honsen Lin at sports@dailyuw.com.