Changing of the guard

It didn’t take long for Montana guard Mandy Morales to pick up right where she left off against the Vikings. 

On March 14 of last year, Morales torched Portland State for 31 points while leading her team to the conference finals, and in the first half of Thursday night’s match-up at the Stott Center, she hit eight of 10 from the field for 17 first-half points.

Unfortunately for Morales and the rest of the visiting Lady Griz, the Vikings were not interested in repeating that particular piece of history. 

Though the senior guard would end the night with a game-high 34 points, the Vikings held the rest of her teammates to a combined 28 points, crippling the most productive offense in the Big Sky, and handing the Lady Griz their first conference loss of the year. 

With the win, the Vikings improved to 8-1 at the Stott Center this year and became the only undefeated team in the conference at 7-0, knocking the crown off the Big Sky favorite Montana. 

“Beating Montana is huge,” said junior guard Claire Faucher after the game. “There’s not much more to say about it. It just feels great.”

For the entire first half, the two teams traded punches like familiar prizefighters. But unlike their foe, who relied on the dazzling offense of Morales to keep them going, the Vikings spread the ball on offense and found the shots they wanted to take. 

When the whistle blew on the first period, seven of the Vikings players had contributed to their 38-33 lead. 

As the second half wore on, the score tightened, though the Vikings never relinquished the lead. Despite having several Vikings try their hands at containing her, Morales continued her offensive assault, finding the hoop seemingly at will. 

“We certainly didn’t plan on Morales going for 34,” said head coach Sherri Murrell after the game. “But we shut down their other big players, and forced them to give the ball up.”

Eventually, the Portland State defense became too much for the Lady Griz, who looked unsettled with the ball on offense and committed 20 turnovers in the game. As Faucher predicted on the eve of the showdown, the game was determined by who had more fire in their hearts.

“Defensively, it looked like we wanted it more,” Murrell said. “Everything was on the line for these two teams, and we dug in and scrapped it out.”

With 11 minutes left in the game, the Lady Griz cut the deficit to three points on a lay-up by Morales, but that would be as close as the visiting team would come to remaining perfect in the Big Sky. 

Rallying behind senior forward Katia Hadj-Hamou’s four late-game three-pointers, the Vikings were able to hold off Montana in front of a boisterous crowd of 1,011. 

Hadj-Hamou led all Viking scorers with 19 points, followed by sophomore forward Kelli Valentine with 13. The dynamic duo of senior Kelsey Kahle and Claire Faucher connected for a combined 20 points, nine rebounds, and seven steals. 

Though their seventh straight conference victory has supplanted the Lady Griz as the hottest team in the Big Sky, the Vikings did not seem ready to let down their guard.

“We got one big one down, but we’ve got a lot more to go,” Faucher said. “Now we’re only thinking about Montana State on Saturday.”