ARCATA – Humboldt State puts a hold on its conference action for a weekend as it hosts Western Oregon in a non-conference face off Saturday at 2 p.m. in the Lumberjack Arena.
The Jacks come off a huge 66-44 win over Cal State East Bay on their first California Collegiate Athletic Association road trip of the season. After posting a four-game winning streak, defending CCAA Champions Cal State Monterey Bay handed HSU its first loss of the year to put Humboldt State at 5-1, 2-1 in conference, entering Saturday's game.
Head-to-Head
Western Oregon holds the upper hand in the overall series, winning 17 of the 28 games, including last year's matchup with an 83-76 final. The last Humboldt State win was during the 2008-09 season when the Jacks pulled away with a 97-66 victory over the Wolves.
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Lumberjack Notes
Humboldt State held its own against CSUMB, but started slow and had to rally to drop a 13-point lead to six points at halftime. Despite the battle, the Jacks lost 67-60 with
Bree Halsey tying her career-high rebounds in a single game with 17. Halsey currently sits in the No. 4 spot of the CCAA leader board for rebounds, averaging 9.0 rpg.
Whitney Howard has been on a roll, scoring in double figures in five of the six HSU games to work herself into the starting rotation after not seeing much minutes her three previous years. Also stepping up for the Lumberjacks is
Lexxi Price, who in the last three games has averaged 12.3 ppg and 6.0 rpg, and picked up a block and five steals. Leading HSU in scoring is
Lisa Petty with 13.4 ppg, placing her tied for seventh in the CCAA for scoring. Petty has also picked up six steals, a block and 34 rebounds in her five games. Defensive-wise,
Patrice Saindon and
Caitie Richards lead the Jacks with 17 and 13 steals, respectively, while
Kayla Williams has dished out 21 assists to her teammates.
Opponent Notes
Western Oregon is currently on a two-game winning streak after snapping a six-game losing streak, including a staggering 96-32 loss at Oregon State and losses to Cal State L.A. (69-62), Cal Poly Pomona (69-53), Cal State San Marcos (64-59) and Academy of Art (61-59)—despite Rylee Peterson's 26-point game against the Urban Knights, a team the Jacks beat 68-54. The Wolves opened up their Great Northwest Athletic Conference play with two wins over Central Washington (77-61) and Northwest Nazarene (57-46). Peterson is the standout leader for Western Oregon, averaging 17.3 ppg and 8.4 rpg, and collecting 15 steals and 17 blocks in the early season. Jade Haas is the next highest Wolf behind Peterson with 11.1 ppg, 4.8 rpg and 14 steals.
Injury Update
Getting players healthy has been a focus for Gleason since the start of the season.
Kelly Kime and
Elle Anderson have been rehabbing their leg injuries ferociously with hopes of seeing playing time in the next couple games. Anderson is probable for the weekend, while Kime is still questionable. Unfortunately for the Jacks,
Jordawn Emmett and Rachael Zarate will most likely be out for the season due to injuries.
Gleason's Gabs
"We're happy to be home for these next two games. It's always nice to play at home in front of our own crowd." ... "Western Oregon just had couple of big wins last weekend so they should be a good challenge for us. They like to play a fast-paced type of game so we just have to prepare for them to run. They did a good job knocking us off last year, but I know we'll be ready to take them on this year." ... "The goal is to have Elle play and she has been making good progress, but we won't know until closer to game time." ... "We are continuing to fine tune some things we need to work on this week. We still need to eliminate forced turnovers."
