The Northern Arizona women scored a school-record 59 first half points in the first half to jump out to a 35-point lead and cruised to a 94-56 win over Sacramento State on Saturday night.
The Lumberjacks posted a 58-34 rebounding advantage and recorded a season-high 21 steals en route to their second Big Sky win, moving to 2-7 in conference play and 7-14 overall. The Hornets dropped to 8-14 overall and 3-6 in conference.
The 59 points scored in the first half eclipsed the previous school record of 58 points in a half, set against Idaho State in 2008. This came a week after NAU and Idaho State played the second-lowest-scoring home game in NAU history, a game in which the Lumberjacks scored 44 total points for the game -- 15 less than they scored in just the first half on Saturday -- and lost 49-44.
“Our focus has been to cut harder, wait for screens longer and play better team basketball, and we did that tonight,” NAU head coach Laurie Kelly said. “We’re a talented team if we are able to feed off everybody’s strengths. The first half was great basketball; we ran a lot of good defense that led to offense.”
The offensive blitz began early, as the Lumberjacks used an early 14-0 run to turn a 6-6 tie into a 20-6 lead at the 15:24 mark of the opening period. After the Hornets brought the score to 20-10, the Lumberjacks went on another extended run, outscoring the Hornets 13-2 over the next three and half minutes to go up 33-12. Up by 25 at 49-24 with 3:15 to play, NAU closed the half on a 10-0 spurt to take a commanding 59-24 halftime lead.
NAU outshot Sacramento State 54% to 31% in the first half and had a 30-17 rebounding advantage, including 13 offensive boards, to attempt 16 more shots than the visitors in the opening period. The Lumberjacks also forced 16 first-half turnovers, leading to 23 points.
“To me, this was a team we had to beat,” Kelly said. “We did what we
needed to do tonight, and that confidence, energy, and focus we’ve had in
practice will hopefully build into this upcoming four-game road
stretch. We know we’re climbing uphill right now, and it’s essential
that we don’t give any games away.”
The Lumberjacks’ field goal percentage dropped to 38 percent in the second half, but the Hornets continued to struggle, shooting 36 percent. NAU would not lead by fewer than 31 points for the duration of the game, with the lead growing to as many as 42 points in the final three minutes of the contest. The Lumberjacks would come up just short of their third all-time 100 point game, finishing with 94 points, their highest total since putting up 98 against Sacramento State in 2010.
Junior Tyler Stephens-Jenkins led three NAU players in double figures with 18 points, 14 of which came in the first half. She finished 7 of 9 from the field and hit three 3-pointers. Junior Amy Patton had 14 points and eight rebounds, and sophomore Khyra Conerly finished with 10 points and equaled the team high with four assists. Sophomore Shay May had eight points and a team-high nine rebounds, and junior Caty Huntington had five of NAU’s 21 steals, which equaled the fifth-best single-game steals mark in program history.
“We just came out ready to play tonight,” said Stephens-Jenkins. “We felt like they stole the game from us up there (Sacramento State won 91-85 in double overtime in Sacramento), so we didn’t want the same thing happening again. “
