OGDEN, Utah — There’s one downside to having a long winning streak against a single opponent.
That is that the law of averages at some point is going to come into play.
Sooner or later, the team that you’re dominating is going to make a pass, hit a shot, steal the ball or grab a rebound and win.
The Idaho State women’s basketball team had beat Weber State 13 straight times. But it wasn’t able to make it 14 in a row in a 72-67 loss Saturday on the road in Big Sky Conference play.
It happened after Kendra Parra hit a second-chance layup in the paint with 12 seconds left in overtime before being fouled to break a 67-67 tie.
The Wildcats are now 2-1 in league play and 5-8 overall. ISU drops to 1-2 in the Big Sky and 6-8 on the season.
For the third game in a row, the Bengals played without one of their leading scorers, Hallie Wright, who was on the bench in street clothes. She appeared to injure her knee during the first minute of the Northern Arizona game last week.
The player who led the charge for Weber State was a local product, Taylor Smith. The daughter of former ISU assistant coach Courtnie Smith. She had a double-double of 19 points and 10 rebounds. She added three assists and a steal. Smith played basketball at nearby Century High School and came into the game as one of the leading scorers in the Big Sky and the best free throw shooter in the league.
But she had a lot of help from her front-court teammates.
Smith, Antoniette Nnopu and Rose Bubakar combined for 45 points as they overpowered the smaller ISU players. Thirteen of those points came from the free throw line as they fouled out Idaho State’s Piper Carlson and were able to draw four fouls on her backup Aurora Elder.
Weber State scored 38 points in the paint in an effort to attack ISU at the rim all afternoon. And the Bengals defensively, had no answer. The Wildcats went 23-of-27 from the foul line with 12 points coming in the first quarter alone.
But even with the size issue, the Bengals rallied from being down 10 points in the first half to taking a three-point lead late in the third quarter.
That’s when the shooting woes, which have crippled this group of ISU players for the last few years, surfaced again.
In the fourth quarter, the Bengals shot 1-of-11 (9%), including missing all seven 3-point attempts. It carried over into the overtime period. They shot 2-of-7 from the field and 0-for-3 from 3-point range. In the final 15 minutes of game action, Idaho State shot just 3-of-18 and missed all 10 shots from beyond-the-arc.
ISU has now played 56 regulation quarters this season and in 11 of them, they have scored nine points or fewer with the latest being the seven-point fourth quarter Saturday in Ogden.
After Parra’s three-point play gave Weber State the lead, the Bengals still had eight seconds to try to tie the score, but Kasey Spink’s 3-point attempt was far off target. Parra was fouled again and hit both free throws to get to the final margin.
Sophia Covello led ISU in scoring with 16 points, including 14 in the second half. Tasia Jordan scored 14 points, including 12 in the first half, and Maria Dias added 10. Spink was the leading rebounder with eight, but her shooting issues continued as she went 0-for-6 in the game.
For the Wildcats, in addition to Smith’s 19 points, Nnopu posted a double-double of 16 and 10 rebounds, Parra had 11 and Bubaker added 10. The four top players for WSU combined for 56 of the team’s 72 points as well as 31 rebounds.
The road trip for ISU continues next week as it take on Montana State at Worthington Arena on Thursday night. The Bobcats ran their record to 14-2 on the year, 4-0 in league play with a convincing 87-81 win over another excellent club in Northern Arizona in Flagstaff. Esmeralda Morales, the transfer to MSU from Portland State, scored 30 points. Montana State has established themselves now as the team to beat for the championship and put together an impressive record without two of its top players for most of the year in Lexi Deden and Taylor Janssen,
Both Deden and Janssen are now back in the rotation.
Game coverage Thursday begins at 6:45 p.m. and can be heard only on KISU.org streaming.