SEATTLE — The No. 24 Washington Huskies were unable to keep up the pace with the No. 9 Ohio State Buckeyes on Thursday at Alaska Airlines Arena in Seattle.

The Huskies fell 70-60 to the visiting Buckeyes and dropped to 17-6 overall this season and 7-5 in Big Ten competition.

"Hard-fought game," UW head coach Tina Langley said after the game Thursday. "Proud of the growth that we had from our last game to this game. ... We're right there. We know we are. As we continue to improve, I'm excited to see who we can become."

Washington was two buckets away from pulling even with Ohio State in the fourth quarter. The latter went into the final 10 minutes of the game with a 54-43 lead.

The Buckeyes extended their lead to 15 points with six minutes, 10 seconds left in the game.

The Huskies responded with a 13-2 run to cut their deficit to 64-60 with 2:09 remaining.

Washington junior guard and defending USBWA National Player of the Week Sayvia Sellers was responsible for 11 of the team's points during that run, which accounted for her entire fourth-quarter total. She finished the game with a team-high 26 points, an assist, two steals and a block.

"We came out in the fourth quarter, we knew we didn't defend well in the third," Sellers said in a postgame interview. "We knew we didn't defend well in the third. I thought the emphasis was trying to get stops on defense. We were able to get stops and then we were able to run our stuff."

Ohio State responded to UW's run with a 6-0 run to secure the 10-point final.

The Huskies were playing catch-up for most of the game due to a dominant Buckeyes full-court defense that forced the Dawgs out-of-rhythm.

Ohio State forced 19 turnovers and scored 22 points off takeaways. Washington forced 11 turnovers and scored 13 points off them.

"I think the first half, we were just trying to flow into the things we knew most," Langley said. " ... We wanted to be able to go from press-break to some offense that we could flow in a little bit better. I didn't think our late-clock offense was very smooth. I thought we lost our flow when it was time to move to our last-10-second offense. For the most part, I thought we were just trying to flow the best we could with tempo."

Despite the Buckeyes' stout defense, the Huskies made up ground on an eight-point deficit it began the second quarter with and went into halftime down four.

Freshman Washington forward Brynn McGaughy, who made her first collegiate start Thursday, scored eight of her 12 points in the first half. She added three rebounds, a block and two steals.

"I'm very grateful," McGaughy said after the game. "It was very exciting. I was just happy I could go out and contribute to the team and just fight with them."

The Buckeyes began to truly separate in the third quarter. Ohio State led by as much as 14 points in the third quarter, which gave the Huskies the hill that was ultimately a little too steep to climb.

Washington will next be in action on the road against Wisconsin at noon on Feb. 8 at the Kohl Center in Madison, Wisc.

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