The Idaho women’s basketball team kicked off the season with a 93-58 win over NAIA opponent Lewis-Clark State College in an exhibition game Friday at the Memorial Gym.
The Vandals started fast, taking an early lead by sinking two 3-pointers in two minutes.
“I really liked the first half,” Idaho coach Jon Newlee said. “I thought our intensity level was up and I thought we came out strong and had a good start.”
Idaho’s defense held the Warriors to 12 points in the first quarter.
“Overall defensively, we did what we wanted to do in the first half,” Newlee said. “We haven’t done a lot of zone work and I liked the way we executed off of only a couple days of practice.”
With a total of 21 assists, Newlee said the team is passing the basketball well.
“We always try to get 20 assists and to get 21, we reached our goal,” Newlee said. “I liked our ball movement tonight. We were sharing the basketball.”
A few new faces were added to Idaho’s roster, including freshmen Taylor Pierce, Mikayla Ferenz and Brigitte O’Neill.
“They’re fitting in great,” Idaho senior Connie Ballestero said. “In practice they’re working hard and earning their minutes out there on the court.”
Ballestero led the Vandals with 17 points, shooting 4 of 7 from the field.
“I think we played really well together tonight,” Ballestero said. “We were all hitting 3’s and working well together.”
Ballestero said Idaho’s chemistry on the court was really good but that it can always improve.
“I mean we could always get better at that, but I think we play really well together,” Ballestero said. “We know how each other plays now.”
After narrowly missing the Big Sky Tournament last season, Newlee said the team has a long way to go.
“It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” Newlee said. “We need to get better every day in practice. We need to test ourselves in the preseason before we get into Big Sky action.”
Idaho opens the regular season against UC Santa Barbara at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Memorial Gym.
“We’re going to be working on the fundamental stuff that we need to improve on,” Newlee said. “It’s really early in the season and we don’t know anything about Santa Barbara. They have a new coach and I don’t know what they’re going to do.”
Ballestero said the team is confident moving forward.
“We’re excited to get rolling and to start playing games,” Ballestero said.
Mihaela Karst can be reached at [email protected]