Idaho women’s basketball started the regular season picking right up where it left off.
The Vandals defeated CSUN 88-73 Tuesday for their fourth consecutive win in a regular season opener. Idaho’s last opening loss came against CSUN back in 2014.
The game was a mid-major clash of titans, with both Idaho and CSUN picked to win their respective conferences in pre- season polls. Both also featured nationally recognized stars in senior center Channon Fluker for CSUN and senior guard Mikayla Ferenz for Idaho.
Each had their moments on Tuesday, but the Vandals’ effort proved to be too
much for the Matadors.
“Defensively, we really stuck to our game plan,” said Head Coach Jon Newlee. “We knew that Fluker would work as a volume shooter inside so we tried to force her into some bad shots. She does a great job low and inside and we just needed to force them out of that.”
Idaho opened the game looking slightly overmatched by CSUN’s size, but that all changed with a 12-3 run to close out the first quarter that brought Idaho up 19-9. The Vandals continued to run up the deficit as the game went on, gaining a lead as large as 21 in the first half.
The Idaho bench erupts after an intense play Tuesday against California State University in Memorial Gym.
Ferenz provided much of the offensive spark, hitting five 3-point field goals in the first half, en route to a 24-point night. She also led the Vandals with seven rebounds and seven assists in the win.
The Matadors made adjustments at half- time and whittled the Idaho lead down to 10 points after a three-point play from CSUN freshman Jordyn Jackson. Sophomore post Natalie Klinker then scored the next eight points for Idaho to put the game out of reach for good.
“Getting Natalie Klinker the ball on the pick-and-roll was part of our plan tonight, trying to get them tired and Nat did a great job of setting great screens and rolling into good shots,” Newlee said.
The Vandals made a point of addressing Fluker, who was named to the watch list for the 2018-19 Lisa Leslie award, which recog- nizes the best center in NCAA Division I women’s basketball. Fluker pulled in a double-double with 16 points and 17 rebounds, but was unable to spread that production to the rest of the team.
“Defensively we really stuck to our gameplan. We knew that Fluker would work as a volume shooter inside so we tried to force her into some bad shots,” Newlee said. “She does a great job low and inside and we just needed to force them out of that.”
The Vandals also got contributions from deeper parts of the roster, with freshman guard Janie King adding six points in only five minutes and sophomore guard Allison Kirby coming off the bench to provide nine points and four assists.
“I thought our bench played great, lots of great decisions with the ball and good defense. We really battled through and our bench proved they can play,” Newlee said.
Idaho now leads the all-time series against CSUN 12-3 and the team has now won five of their last six season openers.
“For your first game coming off the exhibitions, I thought we really progressed and that’s all you can ask for game to game and get ready for the Big Sky,” Newlee said. “It was a nice step forward but we’ve got plenty of steps left to take like Stanford coming up next.”
The Vandals will travel to Stanford to take on the Cardinal 2 p.m. Sunday.
Jonah Baker can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @jonahpbaker