Women's Basketball Earns Second-Straight Win with Rout of Southern Utah

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POCATELLO, Idaho – The Idaho State women's basketball team earned its second-straight win Saturday afternoon with a commanding 64-47 win over visiting Southern Utah at the ICCU Court at Reed Gym. The Bengals finished with a 22-point fourth quarter to halt a third-quarter T-bird run and cruise to victory.

Junior Brooke Blair once again led the Bengals, this time with 18 points off 5-of-11 shooting including 4-of-8 from beyond-the-arc, tying her season-high in made threes. Senior forward Anna Policicchio chipped in 10 points, and junior guard Freya Newton nearly recorded a double-double with a game-high nine rebounds to go along with nine points.

Idaho State (13-12, 6-8 BSC) started the game with its best defensive effort this season and one of the best in recent history, holding Southern Utah (2-23, 0-15 BSC) to just 11 first-half points and just three field goals. The Bengals, who rank third in the Big Sky in field goal percentage defense, forced SUU to shoot just 12 percent in the first 20 minutes. Although the Bengals scored just 24 points in the opening half, their defensive effort enabled them to head into the break with a commanding 24-11 lead.

"I'm very proud of our defense," Head Coach Seton Sobolewski said. "I haven't seen us defend like that in a long time, where we held an opponent to only 11 points in the first half. As a matter of fact, I don't remember that ever happening in the eight years I've been here. So I'm very happy about that and our rebounding."

Newton led ISU in rebounding with nine including five in the first half, her best rebounding effort since grabbing a season-high 11 at Utah Valley on Dec. 29. As a squad, ISU grabbed 22 first-half boards en route to a 34-25 edge on the glass including 10 offensive rebounds that led to 15 second-chance points.

Southern Utah was not to be dismissed, and the T-birds returned for the second half with a 23-point third-quarter explosion, more than doubling their point total from the first half alone. SUU started the half with four-straight field goals, slicing ISU's lead to eight, 29-21 with 6:37 remaining in the third. ISU responded with a 7-1 run to regain the double-digit lead, 36-22. The T-birds outscored ISU by four in the final 1:44 to bring the lead under 10, 42-34, heading into the final quarter.

Idaho State controlled the fourth quarter, outscoring SUU 22-13 including a perfect 8-for-8 effort from the charity stripe to cruise to their second double-digit win, 64-47.

"I think we are becoming a little bit more consistent, and I think we are starting to improve on the areas that we wanted to improve on," Sobolewski said. "We wanted to improve on our defense and rebounding, and offensive continuity, and it's getting better."

Southern Utah was led by Jessica Richardson and Jamie Smith who both finished with 11 points. Dari Frandsen led the T-birds in rebounding with six.

The Bengals are on the road next week for their final road games of the regular season. ISU faces Montana in Missoula, Mont. Feb. 25 at 7:00 p.m. MST.