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POCATELLO, Idaho- The Idaho State women's basketball team had four players score in double figures en route to a 68-56 victory over Utah Valley University on Saturday afternoon at Reed Gym. ISU improved to 5-4 while Utah Valley dropped to 1-6. Saturday was the seventh straight home win for the Bengals.
Chelsea Pickering scored a game-high 20 points in 19 minutes on seven-of-13 shooting from the field and five steals. Ashleigh Vella and Lindsey Reed each had 15 points while Kaela Oakes had 12 points. Reed had a team-best eight rebounds while Oakes also had five steals.
“Chelsea was in the game at the beginning of the second half and picked up her fourth foul,” Idaho State coach Seton Sobolewski said. “We were able to keep her out because I felt like everyone picked up the load a little bit. Vella did a nice job, Kaela, Andi, Kara and Lindsey; even Jessica Jensen did some really nice things for us. I didn't feel rushed to get her back in.”
Idaho State shot 36.5 percent from the field and forced Utah Valley into 30 turnovers, 16 being steals by the Bengals. ISU was 20-22 from the free throw line, a season best.
The Bengals did have to fight past a pesky Wolverine team. Idaho State didn't take their first lead until 5:57 left in the first-half when Pickering hit a jumper to make the score 23-22. ISU led 29-28 at halftime.
“This team plays hard,” Sobolewski said on Utah Valley. “They don't have any All-American's on their team, but they get after it. They played really hard. Today we found a way to win. We grinded it out and had a lot more shot attempts than Utah Valley, which was huge for us. We made some hustle plays in the second half and played much better defense relatively. They scored 28 in the first and second halves, but it was a tougher 28 in the second half.”
Utah Valley scored the first five points of the second half to lead 33-29 with 17:50 to play in the game, forcing the Bengals to call a timeout. Idaho State then went on a 15-3 run, sparked by thee steals for fast break layups, to lead 44-36 with 11:10 to play in the game.
“I said that they were out-working us,” Sobolewski said of his talk to the team during the time out. “I told them, 'you took three shots that were rushed. One pass, one screen, then a shot.' We didn't make them work hard on defense."
"On the other end of the floor they came out pretty charged after halftime. We didn't match their intensity. They were out-working us and we made some mistakes. We re-focused and got pretty pumped up after that. Chelsea made some big plays and we got after the ball on defense and that helped us," said Sobolewski.
The closest Utah Valley got the rest of the way was six points and the Bengals biggest lead of the game was 14 points at 68-54 with 11 seconds to play.
Idaho State returns to the court on Dec. 8 against Utah in Salt Lake City. Tip-off is at 7 p.m.
--www.isubengals.com--
