Women’s basketball falters on the road
Friday night, the Viking women’s basketball team traveled to Bozeman, Mont. to take on the Montana State Bobcats. With a strong first half, the Vikings looked to bounce back from a series of disappointing road games.
As the first half drew to a close, Portland State was up on the Bobcats 38-30. Unfortunately, the Vikings lost all momentum, and the Bobcats took over to beat Portland State 81-66.
The Vikings were lead by Nikki Petticrew and Sarah Hedgepeth, who had 17 and 16 points respectively. The Vikings’ leading rebounder, Niki Sadowski, came up with eight boards.
Portland State had nine steals compared to only four for the Bobcats, but it just wasn’t enough to affect the outcome of the game. Montana State had 39 rebounds to just 31 for the Vikings.
After facing a tough opponent in Montana State, the Vikings had little time to rest before they took on the University of Montana Grizzlies, Saturday night.
Again, the Vikings looked good as the game was getting underway, but they just could not keep the Grizzlies down. In fact, Portland State got such a jump on Montana that they were up 7-0 within the first few minutes of the game.
That score wasn’t to last however, as the Grizzlies got behind a head of steam and took off. They ended the first half with the score 35-29, in favor of Montana.
The second half only added insult to injury for Portland State as they watched Montana’s lead grow to a final score of 70-51. With the defeat, Portland State has now lost four straight games and is left with a record of 6-10.
One factor that didn’t help the Vikings was the turnover ratio. Portland State turned the ball over 19 times compared to only eight times for the Bobcats.
Once again, the Viking offense was lead by Petticrew and Hedgepeth who came up with 16 and 12 points respectively. Jill Feller also showed some improvement as she pulled down eight rebounds for Portland State.
Probably the biggest factor in the whole game was the shooting percentage.
Montana shot at 40.3 percent for the game and the Vikings only shot at 29.3 percent.
So far, the Vikings have only been able to win one game on the road, and that victory came at the hands of Texas A&M in an early tournament in Hawaii.
Fortunately, the Vikings will have a week off to practice and recuperate from their exhausting weekend in Montana. They return to the Peter W. Stott Center this coming Saturday to face Eastern Washington at 7:05 p.m.
