Vikings get ready for Big Sky home opener

The Vikings women’s basketball team will take on the Eastern Washington Eagles this Saturday night in its first Big Sky Conference home game of the season. A weeklong break should have allowed the PSU players some time to recoup after a 1-1 conference-opening road trip last weekend.

Eastern Washington may prove to be a strong force in the Big Sky Conference this season, having already won its first two conference games against Northern Arizona (which defeated the Vikings last Saturday, 65-42) and Sacramento State (defeated by the Vikings this past Friday, 77-51).

What is even more impressive is the fact that both of these wins came on the road. It is also the first time in three years that the school has garnered two wins in the first week of league play. The Eagles will come into Saturday’s game determined to capture a 3-0 BCS start – the best in the program’s history since becoming a member of that league.

Last season, the Vikings seemed to be fairly evenly matched with the Eagles. At one point in time, both teams were competing for the fifth seed at the BSC Championships. However, PSU was defeated 53-44 in its last match-up with Eastern Washington last February.

Vikings Heidi Stuart, Nikki Petticrew and Sarah Hedgepeth all gave team-leading performances in that last contest and have been equally effective in recent games. Overall poor shooting – 29.1 percent for the night, including 21.1 percent in the second half – ultimately lost that game for the Vikings.

Eagle forward Allie Bailey had 14 points and seven rebounds that night. Stephanie Mckinney added 12 points. This year, junior Kathleen Nygaard and senior Michelle Demetruk have been playing well for the team and could be the ones PSU will be looking to contain.

“Portland State is a good team,” Eagles coach Wendy Schuller said recently in a press release, “so it will be hard to go into their gym and win. We just need to execute our game plan. We need to start on defense and generate good things from there.”

Generating a win at the Peter Stott Center has been difficult for Viking opponents so far this season. The team currently has an impressive 5-1 record at home.