Weber State University Athletics
Weber State University
Sacramento State
Career-Highs not Enough for Cats Against Hornets
3/1/2013 5:25:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Senior Kia Rhodes tallied a career-high 15 points, but it wasn't enough as the Wildcats fell to Sacramento State on Thursday night, 63-57.
The Wildcats hung around all game until the Hornets pulled away in the last two minutes of the game.
Kalie Matthews also had a career-high, pulling down 15 rebounds in the loss.
The loss was Weber State's 45th in a row, a new Big Sky Conference record, breaking the previous record which was set by the team that beat the Wildcats Thursday, Sacramento State.
Matthews' 15 boards was only topped by Sacramento State forward Kylie Kuhns who pulled down 20 boards, ten on the offensive end and ten on the defensive end. Kuhns' 20 rebounds put her into first place on the all-time career rebound list at Sacramento State.
The Wildcats outrebounded Sacramento State, 46-44. Weber State's stellar performance on the glass kept the Cats in the game.
"It felt really good to outrebound them," Matthews said. "It's a pride thing. We've been really working hard on boxing out and it finally paid off a little bit tonight."
Three-point shooting was another advantage that helped the Wildcats hang with a team that beat them in Sacramento by 43 points. The Wildcats hit eight three-pointers in the game while the Hornets only made one three-pointer.
Sacramento State held a huge advantage in the paint and outscored the Wildcats there by a margin of 36-16. The Hornets' also outscored the Cats on the fast break, 10-2.
The Wildcats gave heavy emphasis to the transition game in preparation for the game. Sacramento State runs a full-court press and tries to get opponents to take quick, bad shots. Weber State head coach Bethann Ord was pleased with the way that her team responded to the pressure.
"We really worked on being composed against the press," Ord said. "I thought we did a really good job of taking good shots, even though we did turn it over a lot more than we should have."
Weber State turned it over 20 times to the Hornets' 16 turnovers, but Sacramento State scored Weber State, 18-9 off of those turnovers.
"I feel like a lot of the turnovers we did commit were unforced," Ord said. "So that can happen when you're trying to beat a team as good as Sacramento State, who forces enough turnovers on their own."
Weber State will host Northern Arizona on Saturday night at 8 p.m. at the Dee Events Center. The game will be the Cats' last home game of the season, so it will be Senior Night and the team will honor Kia Rhodes before tipoff.
