In a year of firsts for the Southern Utah women’s basketball team, head coach J.R. Payne wasn’t even aware of the latest first.
No. 2 seed Southern Utah won its first conference tournament game in 15 years by battling back to beat No.7 seed Sacramento State 86-78 on Thursday afternoon in the first round of the Big Sky women’s basketball tournament at the Betty Engelstad Sioux Center.
The Thunderbirds, who came to the Big Sky two years ago from the Summit League, improved to 22-18, which is already a school record for wins.
“I knew it was the first conference win since I’ve been here, but I didn’t know it was that long ago,” Payne said. “We just try to go 1-0 on game day. It’s more and more firsts for this team. The more the better.”
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It wasn’t smooth sailing for SUU, though. The undersized Hornets came out firing, building a 12-point lead with nine minutes left in the first half.
Sacramento State, which has battled injuries and plays just eight players, utilized a sagging zone to battle their height disadvantage. Early, the SUU shooters weren’t making the Hornets pay for packing in the defense.
“We expected a zone, but we didn’t expect it to be quite as compact,” Payne said. “We were passive early in the game. We needed to be more aggressive from the gate.”
The Thunderbirds didn’t seal the win until the final minute when they forced a turnover while leading by just four with 35 seconds remaining.
The Thunderbirds held of the Hornets behind Desiree Jackson’s 21 points off the bench and Hailey Mandelko’s 20 points.
“I liked our energy level, but we didn’t have enough in the tank,” Sacramento State coach Bunky Harkleroad said. “I’ll take credit for the loss. The gameplan was to keep them out of the paint. They hit the jumpers we were going to allow them to take. I was proud of our players for a good effort. We fought until the end.”
Gigi Hascheff scored 25 points on 5-for-11 shooting from the 3-point line to pace the Hornets.
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