Viking women’s basketball opens season in Hawaii
Portland State women’s basketball took on the Texas A&M Aggies, who hail from the Big 12 conference, Saturday. The Vikings were able to pull out the win in double overtime with a final score of 80-78 thanks to some sharp shooting from three point land at the buzzer from freshman Heidi Stuart.
The game was close all throughout. Portland State got a huge break however, because the Aggies weren’t able to convert their freethrows, making only 13 of 31 on the day.
Portland State was on the blocks, outrebounding the Aggies 56 to 49. However, the Vikings did hand the ball over to Texas on 31 occasions as opposed to the Aggies’ 22 turnovers.
Texas took a 33-30 lead into the locker room at the half, only to have the Vikings come back and tie the game up in the second half. Only seven points were scored in the first overtime and then the Vikings were able to put a lid on the game with Heidi Stuart’s buzzer-beating three pointer.
Niki Sadowski led Portland State in rebounds with 10 for the game. She was followed by Jill Feller, Sarah Hedgepeth, Staci Kleier and Niki Petticrew with nine, seven, seven and seven rebounds respectively.
The Viking’s leading scorer was Petticrew who had a total of 20 points. Hedgepeth wasn’t far behind as she was able to put down 17 points.
With the victory, the Vikings advanced to the championship round of the tournament. Hawaii gained the win over Washington State to face Portland State for the championship.
That game marked a homecoming for PSU head coach George Wolfe who was the assistant coach for the Wahine for a number of years.
Sunday afternoon, the Vikings and the Wahine hit the court in true
championship fashion. Despite some good play from the Vikings, Hawaii was able to come away with the 68-55 victory.
Hedgepeth was named to the All-Tournament team for her efforts on the court.
This was due to the fact that she averaged 12.5 points per game, 7.0 rebounds, had a 56.3 shooting percentage as well as 85.7 percent from behind the free-throw line.
The Vikings were outrebounded 45 to 32 by Hawaii. The two teams had almost identical turnover totals, Portland State with 12 and Hawaii with 13.
The Vikings struggled a bit from the free throw line, shooting only 50.0 percent in the first half, but were able to up that to 66.7 percent in the second. The Wahine hit 75.0 percent from the free-throw line in the first half, but that number dropped to 60.0 percent in the second half.
Portland State led at one point during the first half with a score of 25-15, but handed their momentum right back to the Wahine who quickly came back. Hawaii took a 32-27 lead into halftime.
Unfortunately, the Vikings were only able to shoot at 26.8 percent from the field in the second half, opening up a hole for Hawaii to squeeze right through. The Wahine capitalized on the opportunity to put the game away and was able to hold Portland State to just one field goal in 12 minutes of play.
Despite the loss, Portland State can now look forward to this Wednesday when they take on the Oregon State Beavers at 7 p.m. The game will be televised on ASCN and broadcast over the internet at www.GoViks.com.
