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POCATELLO, Idaho – The Idaho State women's basketball team dropped its conference-opener 76-70 to visiting Weber State Saturday afternoon at the ICCU Court at Reed Gym. The loss snapped a three-game win streak for the Bengals and marked its first conference-opening loss since the 2015-16 season.
"Weber made a lot of great one-on-one plays," Head Coach
Seton Sobolewski said. "Creating space, hitting open shots. They beat us a lot on the 50-50 balls, they had a few more o-boards than we needed to allow them to get. They deserved to win."
Idaho State (8-4, 0-1 BSC) finished with four players in double-figures, led by senior guard
Brooke Blair with 15 points on 6-of-11 from the floor. Junior guard
Saylair Grandon added 14 points and seven boards, while junior forward
Grace Kenyon added a double-double with 11 points and 11 rebounds. Sophomore guard Estefania Ors rounded out the double-figure scoring with an even 10 points.
The contest was close throughout the first half as neither team led by more than five points. Weber State (9-3, 1-0 BSC) claimed the lead for the majority of the first 20 minutes, but a 4-0 run from the Bengals to open the second quarter put ISU up 22-19 with 8:50 remaining in the quarter.
The game was tied four times over the final 8:50, and a 4-0 run from the Wildcats to close the quarter gave WSU the 34-30 lead.
Coming out of the break, Idaho State struggled to connect, shooting 28 percent from the floor for just 12 points in the third quarter. WSU pushed ahead, scoring 20 third-quarter points behind 57 percent shooting from beyond-the-arc. Idaho State clung to a one-point lead with 8:06 remaining, 35-34, but an 18-5 run in favor of WSU over the next 6:19 gave the Wildcats their largest lead of the night at 12, 52-40.
With 8:04 remaining in the fourth, WSU held its 12-point lead, 58-46, but Idaho State stormed back and put together a 20-11 run over the next 6:02 to cut the Wildcats lead to three, 69-66. Yet that is as close as ISU could come as Weber State closed the quarter on a 7-4 run to claim the six-point win, 76-70.
"Too little too late," Head Coach
Seton Sobolewski said. "We had a great fourth quarter, shot the ball well, scored almost 30 points and we fought, but I thought Weber played with a great intensity level. They had a couple of people who really showed up and made great plays."
The Bengals fourth quarter was its best single-quarter performance of the season, scoring 28 points on 61 percent shooting from the field. However, a 22-point effort from the Wildcats thwarted any possibility of a Bengals comeback.
Weber State was led by Jaiamoni Welch-Coleman with a career-high tying 20 points on 8-of-13 from the floor. Larryn Brooks finished with 14 points, Emily Drake finished with 13 points and Jocelyn Adams chipped in 10 points and 10 rebounds.
Idaho State continues conference play next week with road games at Southern Utah (6:30 p.m., Jan. 4) and at Northern Arizona (5 p.m., Jan. 6).
