Idaho women hit 16 3-pointers, advance to Big Sky Tournament championship

RENO, Nev. – The words were so cliche but seldom so true.

“Shooters shoot, that’s what we like to say,” Mikayla Ferenz said Friday as she and her Idaho teammates celebrated another trip to the Big Sky Conference Tournament title game.

The Vandals earned it in remarkable fashion, outshooting Portland State to claim a 102-99 win in the semifinals at the Reno Events Center.

Idaho put up 31 long-range shots and made 16 against the PSU zone defense, although the Vikings made 12 out of 18 in one of the more entertaining games of the tournament.

“What a shootout,” Idaho coach Jon Newlee said. “We like playing against zones, but it was just a matter of what can we do to stop them.”

The Vandals never really did, but they made two big runs late in the fourth quarter to advance to Saturday’s title game against top-seeded Northern Colorado. Win that one and Idaho will be in the NCAA Tournament for the second time in three years.

“I think it’s fitting, because we were the two best teams this year,” said Newlee, whose Vandals (19-12) split with regular-season champ UNC (25-6).

“We just have to keep moving the basketball, and we’re going to have to defend, because they’re so hard to guard,” Newlee said of the title game.

So are the Vandals, who reached the 2016 NCAAs with the same kind of shooting they displayed on Friday – and from the same two players.

Juniors Ferenz and Taylor Pierce, known as the “Splash Sisters” since their freshman year, did most of the damage against PSU, combining for 53 points, all but eight on 3-point shots.

The 16 made 3s by the Vandals are the second most in tournament history, behind Sacramento State’s 19 in 2017.

Pierce, who scored 31 points, made nine 3-pointers, breaking the Big Sky single-game tournament record set by none other than Ferenz in 2016.

Pierce also has 129 3-pointers this year, second most in Division I history.

“My teammates do a great job of getting me the ball,” Pierce said.

In a remarkable display of unselfish basketball, the Vandals dished out 31 assists. Ten came from Ferenz, who narrowly missed a triple-double with 22 points and nine rebounds.

Backup post Isabelle Hadden scored 18 points while shooting 9 for 12 from the field, and senior post Geraldine McCorkell had 20 points and made several clutch free throws in the final minutes.

The Vandals put up 69 shots, making 36 (52 percent), and were 14 for 14 from the foul line.

But for all of that offense, the Vikings (19-13) were never far behind. Idaho’s biggest lead was 11 points, late in the first quarter.

Portland State responded with the first of several big rallies, closing to 30-23 after the first quarter. The Vandals had a 10-point advantage midway through the second only to see PSU close to within 49-48 at halftime.

It was the same story in the third quarter, as a nine-point Idaho lead shrank to 71-69 going into the fourth.

“We’re going to have to defend better than we did today,” Newlee said about the title game.

Idaho struggled to stop Ashley Bolston, a Washington State transfer who scored 26 points – 11 at the foul line – and kept PSU in the game until the end.

The Vandals twice appeared to have the game wrapped up, only to watch PSU come back. A 90-79 lead with 4:29 to play shrank to two, then grew to eight before PSU’s final rally.

Leading 98-96 after a PSU layup with 13 seconds left, the Vandals inbounded to McCorkell. She was fouled and hit both foul shots, and after a Viking miss, Pierce nailed two more free throws to seal the game.