The Idaho women’s basketball team needed every second of the game to win over Loyola Chicago in the final game of the Preseason WNIT consolation round on Saturday. With the game tied at 60, Idaho guard Christina Salvatore stole the ball from Loyola’s Erin Thomas and raced in for the game-winning layup as the buzzer sounded for a 62-60 Vandal win in front of a shocked home crowd in Chicago.
“Man that was something else,” Idaho coach Jon Newlee said after the win. “What a great finish for us. I thought that maybe we had let it slip away near the end. I felt like we were in charge the whole game and then at the end we were kind of letting go. Our kids showed great poise and ran the plays out of the timeouts exactly the way we wanted to. We got the big stop at the other end and Christina had the huge finish.”
The win was the second of the weekend for Idaho. The Vandals also beat Mount Saint Mary’s 81-63 on Friday. Idaho improves to 2-1 on the season, after a 64-56 loss at No. 25 Gonzaga to start the season.
Senior Alyssa Charlston led the Vandals through the two weekend games with two double-doubles. She had 23 points and 11 rebounds against Saint Mary’s, while nabbing an identical 11 rebounds along with 10 points against Loyola. Her consecutive double-doubles earned her WAC Player of the Week honors.
Junior Stacey Barr was the surprise of the weekend. After injuring her leg against Mount Saint Mary’s, the Australia native came back to post a team-high four 3-pointers and 21 points against Loyola.
In the victory over Loyola, the Vandals carried their momentum from their win over Mount Saint Mary’s into the first half. Idaho’s bench outscored the Loyola bench 11-3 to help lead the Vandals to a 34-27 first-half lead. But Idaho came out slower in the second half and Loyola capitalized to make it a close game.
“I thought we took some bad shots early,” Newlee said of his team’s second half performance. “It kind of skewed our offense. When we are taking good shots in rhythm and taking the threes we want to take, we are good shooters. I thought we just gutted it out.”
Salvatore was scoreless from the field on the day, until her timely game winning layup in the closing seconds.
Three Vandals posted double digit scoring against Loyola. Sophomore point guard Connie Ballestero had 11 points to join Charlston and Barr in the double-digit category.
The Vandals won both games without starting forward Ali Forde. The dual-sport athlete was busy leading the volleyball team to wins over Chicago State and Missouri-Kansas City as the team vies for a better seed in the nearing WAC Tournament.
The Idaho basketball has a chance to rest before competing at home this week facing UC Irvine Saturday in Memorial Gym.
Stephan Wiebe can be reached at [email protected]