BY JAIME SCHROEDER
ISU MEDIA RELATIONS POCATELLO, Idaho- The Idaho State women’s basketball team (8-5) dominated against Great Falls (3-7) in the team’s 86-42 victory on Friday night at Reed Gym. The Bengals had five players finish in double figures. Junior Kaela Oakes led Idaho State with 19 points. Oakes also recorded four rebounds, five assists and two steals.
Junior Ashleigh Vella followed Oakes with 16 points for the night while also tacking on four rebounds, four assists and two steals. Sophomore Lindsey Reed finished with 13 points after shooting 0-2 in the first half. Reed also added five rebounds, four assists and five steals in the contest.
Senior Chelsea Pickering and junior Taylor Floyd both finished with 10 points and four rebounds for the game. Pickering also had four assists.
The 44-point win against Great Falls gives ISU its largest margin of victory this season and ties for seventh all-time in the program’s largest margin of victory records. ISU shot 39-79 overall for a shooting percentage of 49.4. The Bengals also recorded a season-high 26 assists.
“This is a good game to kind of get going again,” ISU Head Coach Seton Sobolewski said. “I think you need these types of games to get you ready for conference. As a coach, you are pretty critical of your team and you want everything to be perfect and going back to the stat sheet I am very happy. First off with the way we shared the ball. We showed ball movement. I thought that in the first half we were a little impatient and took some quick shots and that’s fine but we weren’t playing very good team ball at that time. We talked about that at half time and they executed it.”
The Bengals started off the first half on a 19-2 run and were able to keep a comfortable lead for the rest of the half, going into halftime up 37-10.
Overall, the Bengals outrebounded the Argos 47-33, they had 56 points in the paint to Great Falls’ 16 and they recorded 32 points off of turnovers.
“Our goal tonight was to get 20 or more offensive rebounds and we got it with 22,” Sobolewski said. “We shoot for that in every game and we were close with Oklahoma Panhandle State where we got 19. I thought Abyee [Maracigan] did a fantastic job on the boards tonight. She only played 11 minutes but she got six boards in those 11 minutes. She just has a nose for where the ball is going down.”
The Bengals held Great Falls to a 17.4 shooting percentage in the first half and a 32.7 shooting percentage overall.
ISU returns to Reed Gym on Monday, Jan. 2 at 7 p.m. for their first conference game against Northern Colorado. The Bears are currently tied with the Bengals for third place in the conference.
