Everyone in the building knew Lindsey Reed was going to put up the last shot.

    That’s why Rebecca Schrimpsher took it.

    With 10 seconds left on the clock and Idaho State deadlocked in a tie game, Schrimpsher grabbed the handoff from Reed, took a few steps, rose and fired. The shot sank, and the Bengals held on for the 60-58 win over Weber State Monday at Reed Gym.

    “Past experience has showed us that Lindsey Reed’s going to take the shot,” said Idaho State head coach Seton Sobolewski. “That’s what the other team knows — that the ball’s going to Lindsey Reed. So we decided to switch it up and go to somebody else.”

    That somebody else was Schrimpsher. In 24 minutes of floor time, she had taken just three shots, netting two points. But the last one — the one that would either lock the game into overtime or give the Bengals the win — was the most important.

    “We actually ran it from the wrong side of the floor,”Sobolewski said. “But she made something out of it. She hit a tough, clutch shot.”

    Reed, who was 7 of 11 from the floor — including 3 of 4 from downtown — had a game-high 22 points. She received the inbounds pass before making the game-clinching assist. It was a play the Bengals run all the time in practice. And if worked well against a Bengal defense, Reed was confident it would work against a Wildcat squad that wouldn’t know any better.

    “Our own team knows what we’re going to do,” Reed said. “So we thought it would work really well against a team that didn’t run it with us every day.”

    Schrimpsher’s shot was the last of a powerful, second-half shooting performance for the Bengals, who shot 55.6 percent from the floor in the final 20 minutes. It salvaged an otherwise rough offensive execution in the first half, where Idaho State was 8 for 26 (.308) and 2 of 8 from the foul line.

    At halftime, the Bengals took it upon themselves to correct that.

    “We weren’t playing great, and we decided to do something,” Sobolewski said. “We were focused on looking at one thing on offense: Going to the basket. That’s all we were looking at, and we didn’t realize that some of the perimeter things were open.

    “I think they identified that.”

    Identified that indeed. After making one 3-pointer in the first half, Idaho State was 5-8 from behind the arc in the second. Two of those 3-pointers defined the night and gave the Bengals momentum that they would carry until the final buzzer.

    Down by six midway through the second half, Reed buried a 3. Then on the other end, Idaho State’s Kara Jenkins poked the ball away, drove down the court and dished to Sheryl Bitter, who drained another 3.

    With its lead gone, Weber State took a timeout to regroup. Though the Wildcats would be able to regain the advantage, the back-to-back treys were just what the Bengals needed to get over the hump.

    “I think that was just the momentum to get us going,” Reed said. “That triggered everything. … I think that made us feel like, ‘We’re in this. We got this.’ I think those two shots just put us both at zero, and we were like, ‘Let’s work hard and win this.’”

    The victory gives Idaho State (5-10, 3-3 Big Sky) a confidence boost heading into a pivotal road trip with Montana (Thursday) and Montana State (Saturday). And halfway through a four-game stretch in eight days, the Bengals are sitting pretty. Paired with the win last Saturday at Southern Utah, Idaho State takes a two-game winning streak — and the good vibes — to Missoula, Mont.

    “To win the home game was important,” Sobolewski said. “And hopefully we’ve got some positive momentum here going into the Montanas.”