SACRAMENTO, Calif.- Gary Chivichyan scored a career-high 25 points to lead the Idaho State men's basketball team to a 67-64 victory over Sacramento State on Thursday evening at the Hornets Nest.
Chivichyan scored his 25 points by making eight 3-pointers on 11 attempts. He was 8-12 from the field and hit one free throws while coming up with one assist and one steal in 33 minutes of play.
"It was a great job by my guys tonight," Idaho State coach
Bill Evans said. "Gary made some 3-pointers tonight. It was a good team win and we had some guys who really stepped up."
Stutzman scored 20 points, was 7-13 from the field and made 4-7 from three-point range. He had three assists, one block and played all 40 minutes.
Novak Topalovic scored 13 points and grabbed five rebounds and
Brandon Boyd had a team-high six assists to go with five rebounds.
ISU shot 48.9 percent from the field and made 12 3-pointers on 23 attempts. The Bengals made 11 of 13 from the foul line and had 16 assists. ISU was out rebounded 38-24.
The Hornets shot 41.7 percent and was only 3-18 from the three-point line. Justin Strings scored 24 points to lead Sac State.
"We did a good job defensively tonight and we found some guys who can shoot from beyond the arc," Evans said.
The game was close the entire game as neither team had a double digit lead. The game consisted of 19 lead changes and seven ties.
Idaho State's biggest lead of the game was eight at 15-7 following a Stutzman 3-pointers seven minutes into the first half.
Sacramento State's biggest lead of the game was four at 7-3 two minutes into the game.
After the Bengals took the eight point lead, the Hornets went on a 13-4 run to take a 20-19 lead with 8:27 left until halftime. Idaho State led 32-31 at halftime.
Once Sac State took the 20-19 lead, neither team had a lead bigger than two points until ISU opened the second half by taking a 40-35 lead with 18:22 to play following another 3-pointer by Stutzman.
Idaho State extended its lead to 47-41 with 13:57 to play before the Hornets countered with a run to take a 50-49 lead two minutes later.
The ISU defense then held Sacramento State to four points over the next the six minutes as ISU took a 60-54 lead following a 3-pointer by Stutzman with 6:49 left in the game.
The Bengals led 63-56 with 4:34 to play after Chivichyan's eighth 3-pointer of the game.
Idaho State was then held scoreless for the next two minutes as the Hornets took a 64-63 lead with 1:16 to play. Stutzman gave ISU the lead for good on a jumper with 41 seconds remaining. Then with 12 seconds left in the game
Geno Luzcando came up with a steal that helped the Bengals preserve the lead.
With eight seconds left and ISU leading 65-64, Stutzman missed the front end of a one and one but
Erik Nakken came up with the offensive rebound, allowing
Brandon Boyd to hit two free throws to seal the victory.
Idaho State returns to the court on Saturday, Feb. 17 for a 2 p.m. mountain time contest at Portland State.
