The Portland State women’s basketball team was unable to pull itself out of its losing slump; they lost this weekend to Montana and Montana State. Late runs by both Montanas sent Portland State scrambling, and they were unable to come out ahead. The Vikings, picked first in pre-season polls, are struggling to keep their Big Sky championship dream alive. The losses sent the Vikings to the bottom half of the standings in sixth place.
The Portland State women’s basketball team was unable to pull itself out of its losing slump; they lost this weekend to Montana and Montana State. Late runs by both Montanas sent Portland State scrambling, and they were unable to come out ahead. The Vikings, picked first in pre-season polls, are struggling to keep their Big Sky championship dream alive. The losses sent the Vikings to the bottom half of the standings in sixth place.
The Vikings, now 11-9 and 3-5 in conference, are five games behind Big Sky leader Idaho State, who remains undefeated at 8-0 in conference. The weekend’s wins moved Montana in the fourth position and Montana State in the third. Next weekend marks the start of the second half of the regular season, with eight games left to go, meaning every game counts towards making the Big Sky tournament.
On Thursday, the Vikings came out hot against the Montana State Bobcats and led for much of the first half. The Bobcats slowed the visiting team’s momentum, but the Vikings still managed to go into the locker room up by one, 29-28.
The Vikings kept the pace for the start of the second half, but after a basket by sophomore guard Kate Lanz mid-way through the second half, the Vikings went cold. In the final 11 minutes, Portland State claimed only one basket while Montana State dominated with a 28-5 run.
“We played 30 minutes against Montana State, then the wheels came off the bus,” Vikings head coach Sherri Murrell said. “At the end there was just a lack of confidence, and when teams start making runs we need to respond, and we didn’t.”
Unfortunately for the Vikings, Saturday night’s game didn’t turn out much better. The Vikings fell in a similar manner to the Montana Grizzlies, 78-56. Like the Montana State match, the Vikings again pushed through the first half. They led by one at intermission, but the Grizzlies managed a 14-3 run after half time and the Vikings were never able to catch up.
Senior point guard Eryn Jones said, “It was hard to come from being close in those games to losing in the end, but you have to take something from those losses and learn taking the positives out of each game and hopefully carry that over to the next games and through the end of season.”
Jones had double digit scoring in both games―11 against Montana State and 12 against Montana―but against Montana it wasn’t Jones who led the team. Sophomore forward Allie Brock took the honor with a game-high 19 points. Brock has seen limited playing time this season and her performance was one of the few high points for the Vikings’ weekend.
“[Brock] had a great game. I’m always happy to see people come in and show what they can do. It sometimes is hard to come off the bench and have confidence in yourself, but they’re doing that.” Jones said, “When we have different people step up, especially when other people aren’t scoring, that’s huge. It’s always nice to have that spark off the bench,” Jones said.
While Brock grabbed the honors on Saturday, it was sophomore forward Keaton McFadden and junior guard Courtney VanBrocklin who got them on Thursday. McFadden dominated the defensive end with 10 rebounds. VanBrocklin pitched in three rebounds and a steal, but her offensive performance was her highlight, pulling down 17 points.
Jones said that defense, as highlighted by McFadden, was an area of success for the weekend. The senior said that while stops were made defensively the team needs to get shots up on offense and like Murrell said, limit turnovers.
Murrell said it was a lack of defense, high amount of turnovers (15 total) and lack of finishing toughness that cost the team the Montana match up.
“Well we aren’t stepping up,” Murrell said. “We were known in the past as a team that when teams start to make a run, we come back. We will make a stop and score. We aren’t being tough and resilient and we also aren’t taking advantage to make runs ourselves.”
Jones said being back at home will help the team get refocused on winning, and she and Murrell both said the team wants to prove their strength through the final minutes of every game.
After the tough weekend on the road, the Vikings will spend the next two weeks on their home court. They are back in action this Thursday against Weber State. The game is slated for 7 p.m.
