Twenty-four turnovers by the Vandals and 19 3-pointers by the Hornets doomed the Idaho women’s basketball team in its rematch against Sacramento State. The Vandals fell to the Hornets 92-84 Saturday in Sacramento, California.
Sacramento State’s 3-point total was the second highest in the NCAA this season. The Hornets shot 49 3s in the game and made 37 3-pointers in two wins against Idaho.
“They had kids shooting 17 percent from 3 go 4-for-7, hit 50 percent today,” Idaho coach Jon Newlee said. “And the other kid making 3s that hasn’t made squat all year long and all of a sudden they’re out there making them. We had some breakdowns on those kids. We were helping in side but we still needed to contest a little better.”
In two losses against Sacramento State, the Vandals have allowed a combined 199 points. But there were still chances Idaho had to take control of the game Saturday.
After struggling early, the Vandals came back to tie the game at 40 with 18 seconds left in the half. Fantasia Hilliard hit a last-second 3-pointer to give the Hornets a three-point lead heading into the locker room.
The Vandals also grabbed a five-point lead with 17 minutes left in the game on a 3-pointer of their own by freshman post Geri McCorkell. From there, Idaho struggled again, falling behind by as many as 22 points.
“The game really flipped quickly on us,” Newlee said. You can’t do that against a team that plays their style. We got away from our game plan after we got up by five. I thought some rushed shots kind of played into their hands right then.”
Idaho went on a 13-2 run to spark a comeback attempt with less than five minutes remaining in the game, but it wasn’t enough to beat the Hornets.
As usual, the Vandals were led by senior guard Stacey Barr who finished the game with 28 points on 10-of-17 shooting from the floor.
Idaho also received a spark from sophomore guard Karlee Wilson. The Lewiston, Idaho, native finished with 14 points and six assists.
“I thought Karlee was tremendous today,” Newlee said. “It really hurt us when she ran out of gas for a stretch and I had to take her out. She just played her heart out and played as hard as she could. I couldn’t be happier with Karlee’s game today.”
Idaho finishes the season with four of its last six games at home, which is beneficial for a team that needs to win more games to even make the Big Sky Tournament. The Vandals’ next contest is a Thursday matchup against Northern Arizona in the Cowan Spectrum.
“It’s do or die,” Newlee said. “We gotta win these games, we gotta play our way into that top eight. It’s time to get going. I can’t fault our effort tonight, I can fault our smarts when we got the lead. I said, ‘If we play as hard as we did tonight, we’re going to win these games, but we gotta play smarter.’ Hopefully we learned from that.”
Stephan Wiebe can be reached at [email protected]