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POCATELLO, Idaho – Idaho State will make its fourth program trip to the Big Sky Tournament finals Saturday as the No. 1 seeded Bengals defeated No. 6 seed Sacramento State 70-57 Friday evening in front of a crowd of 2,076, the largest crowd in Reed Gym since it became the permanent home of the Idaho State women in 2003.
“I don't remember playing in front of a crowd like this since being at Montana three or four years ago at the conference tournament,” ISU Head Coach
Seton Sobolewski said. “Deafening is how I would describe it. It's just a fun college basketball atmosphere.”
“I have been here for five years and it has never been this crazy,” senior guard
Chelsea Pickering said. “Just to have so much support from this community, it means so much to us. It's like a sixth man on that court giving us an extra boost of energy.”
Idaho State will face No. 2 seed Northern Colorado in the final round of the tournament Saturday at 5 p.m.
Sophomore guard
Lindsey Reed led the Bengals with a double-double, scoring 17 points and pulling down a career-high 11 rebounds. Reed was just one of five ISU players to score in double digits. Sophomore forward
Cydney Horton tabbed 15 points and eight rebounds while senior guard
Chelsea Pickering and junior forward
Ashleigh Vella tallied 13 points apiece. Junior guard
Kaela Oakes tabbed 10 for the contest with eight coming in the second half.
Overall, the Bengals shot 40.9 percent from the field and 35.3 percent from 3-point range. ISU outrebounded Sacramento State 48-36 and pulled down 18 offensive boards. Idaho State shared the ball well, recording 15 assists. Defensively, the Bengals forced 17 turnovers and recorded two blocks and nine steals in the contest.
The first half was a back-and-forth battle with the score tying six times. ISU jumped out to a 13-5 lead early but Sacramento State answered with a 10-2 run to tie it up at 15. The two teams would continue to trade baskets back-and-forth for the remainder of the half. Pickering was clutch for ISU, hitting two big back-to-back 3-point shots midway through the half to help break an ISU scoring slump. She hit another big shot from the arc with 6:17 remaining to put ISU up 27-25. With the Bengals leading 36-34 with 1:36 remaining, SAC's Natasha Torgerson hit a 3-pointer to put SAC up 37-36 at the half.
In the second half, the two teams stayed close until the 13:01 mark when Idaho State opened an 18-2 run, allowing the Hornets to score just two free throws in an 8-minute stretch. Sacramento State would attempt to chip away at ISU's 18-point lead, but it wouldn't be enough as the Bengals defeated the Hornets 70-57. In the half, ISU shot 13-of-32 from the field and
Lindsey Reed hit two big 3-point shots. Oakes and Horton led the Bengals in the half, each scoring eight.
“We made some adjustments in the second half to correct some of the things Sacramento State was hurting us on,” Sobolewski said. “We wanted to keep people off the glass and Emily Christensen was really hurting us so we wanted to contest her shots a little better. We focused on playing hard and playing at a higher intensity level. We wanted to control all the little things you can control with your effort. I felt that in the second half we did a great job guarding, getting out on shooters and containing the drives. We did a much better job on the glass in the second half. We gave up nine offensive boards in the first half and only three for the rest of game. That was big for us.”
The Bengals now face No. 2 seed Northern Colorado in the ICCU Big Sky Tournament Finals. Northern Colorado defeated Montana State in the first semifinal game 51-43 Saturday. ISU swept Northern Colorado during the regular season, most recently in a 64-50 win in Greeley, Colo. The championship game will begin at 5:07 p.m. and will be televised by Altitude Sports.
We Are Your Bengals
