Averaging over 90 points per game has become the norm in the last three games, resulting in victories for the Idaho women’s basketball team.
The Vandals failed to hit that offensive mark Saturday, as solid defensive play from Northern Arizona held the Vandals under 80 points.
But the end result remained the same, as the Vandals earned a season sweep of Northern Arizona with a 76-59 victory at the Cowan Spectrum.
The victory marks Idaho’s fourth straight conference win as the team improves to 9-2 in Big Sky Conference play and 17-6 on the season.
Idaho coach Jon Newlee said despite some offensive stutters, he liked the team’s effort on both ends of the court.
“Defensively, after the first five minutes, we did a great job on executing the game plan,” Newlee said. “Everyone is helping each other and playing good defense, which gets our offense going.”
Four Vandal players finished the night in double figures. Freshman guard Mikayla Ferenz led the Vandals with a career-high 25 points that included five treys.
Out of the five 3-pointers, Ferenz beat the buzzer for two of those shots. The first came in the second quarter as Ferenz sunk a shot from the wing, while the second came from the top of the key in the third quarter.
“Mikayla really came in and jump started the offense,” Newlee said. “Once she knocked her first three, her confidence level was back where it should be. She attacked the rim hard and finished while being really active on both ends.”
Ferenz credited her teammates for giving her open opportunities on the court.
“It felt really good,” Ferenz said. “Ali (Forde) in the second quarter and Christina (Salvatore) in the third found me at the end of each play.”
Ferenz said that Northern Arizona’s pressure on seniors Ali Forde and Christina Salvatore often left other teammates open.
“The teams just worry so much about Christina and Ali because they’re so good,” Ferenz said. “With that in mind, I find myself being open a lot when making those shots.”
Despite five treys from Ferenz, Idaho only converted 33 percent (9-of-27) of its 3-pointers Saturday. The Lumberjacks ended the game with a 60 percent (9-of-15) shooting percentage from behind the arc.
Newlee said he was not concerned with the team’s shot selection early in the game.
“Even if the shots weren’t falling, they were still good shots,” Newlee said. “It’s when we have good looks in our shot selections that were forced is where it can go bad for us. People got to keep the confidence level up and I saw that in the second half.”
In the fourth quarter, Idaho shot 62.5 percent (10-of-16) from the field while the Lumberjacks struggled shooting the ball. Northern Arizona ended the quarter shooting 33.3 percent.
Salvatore finished the game with five assists and 12 points, while Forde earned her 18th career double-double. Forde contributed 15 points and led Idaho with 12 rebounds.
Forde’s physical defense posed problems for Lumberjack center Alyssa Rader. The Lumberjack freshman had difficulty offensively and finished the game with two points.
Before Saturday’s matchup, Rader averaged 14 points per game.
Forde said the Idaho coaching staff did a great job on scouting Rader before Saturday’s game.
“I knew all of Alyssa’s moves that she had coming at me and I played her well,” Forde said. “She’s a great player and if we could get her into foul trouble early that would be good for our team.”
Newlee said part of his game plan was to have several players contain Rader.
“They took advantage of the game plan and made a couple of quick threes on us,” Newlee said. “From there I said Ali can take Rader. I let her go one-on-one and everyone else starts filtering out to the three-point line.”
With seven regular season games left, Idaho will be back on the road this week. The team faces Northern Colorado at 6 p.m. Thursday in Greeley, Colorado.
Forde said the team’s effort is critical during the final weeks of conference play.
“This is the time of year where people are starting to get tired and we’ve done a great job on hustling,” Forde said. “We’ve been having a lot of slow starts lately, so we still need to focus on playing 40 minutes of basketball.”
Luis Torres can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @TheLTFiles