CEDAR CITY, Utah - The Southern Utah women's basketball team opened Big Sky Conference play Monday night with a 71-58 win over Portland State. This is the first time the Thunderbirds have won their conference opener since 2014-15 when they beat the Vikings 86-74 in Cedar City.
"Really proud of our defensive effort tonight. I thought that was huge. One of the things we are really proud of tonight was keeping them off of the offensive boards. At most positions they were bigger and stronger than us and we just outworked them," head coach Tracy Sanders said. "We are a different team. Becca has done a great job of stepping up in those key moments and she has people around her that can handle the pressure. That 13-0 run at the end was in large part due to key steals from Becca and Harley."
Harley Hansen led the Thunderbirds in scoring with 21 points. She also had four steals and five rebounds. Rebecca Cardenas put up 20 points, had six assists, and also contributed four steals. Shalyn Fano had 16 points (6-for-9 FG, 3-for-4 3FG) and led the team in rebounding with nine.
The Thunderbirds were in control for most of the game, never trailing by more than two points and never letting the Vikings go on a run bigger than eight. After a little back-and-forth between the two teams, a 9-2 run in the first quarter allowed the T-Birds to finish out the first ten minutes with a five-point lead.
They continued to build on that in the second quarter, outscoring the Vikings 19-14. With 4:27 to go a three-point shot from Fano capped off a 9-0 run that made it 33-19. The Thunderbirds would go into halftime with a 35-25 lead.
The Vikings got back to within single-digits in the third quarter, but a buzzer beating three from Fano kept the ten-point lead with 10 minutes to go. PSU put together an 8-0 run to cut the lead to just three with 4:55, but that would be the last time they would score for the next four and a half minutes as the T-Birds went on a 13-0 run to claim their biggest lead of the night at 71-55.
They would go on to take the 71-58 victory.
The Lady T-Birds will hit the road this week to take on Montana and Montana State in their first Big Sky road matchups.
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Tickets
Tickets for the Lady T-Birds' next home game on January 9 against Idaho State are available at tbirdtickets.com or the America First Event Center Ticket Office. Fans can also purchase a Women's Sports Pass for access to all 2019-20 regular season home games.
