ARCATA, Calif. – Hoping to secure a home tilt in the upcoming CCAA tournament, the Humboldt State women's basketball team hits the road to end its regular season, taking on Sonoma State Friday and San Francisco State on Saturday, both with 5:30 p.m. tip times.
HSU comes into this weekend's contests with a record of 14-11 overall, 13-7 CCAA. The Lumberjacks will face off against a Seawolves squad that is 11-13 overall, 8-12 in conference, and then travel to meet a Gators team with a mark of 5-18 overall, 3-17 CCAA. With two wins, Lumberjack Head Coach Michelle Bento-Jackson said the team will be assured of a home date come the start of the postseason tournament on Tuesday.
In the team's two games last week against Cal State San Marcos and UC San Diego, leading scorer Tyla Turner had a career-high 32 points and 29 points, respectively. Jovanah Arrington helped the Jack cause with 14 against the Cougars and 13 against the Tritons.
Bento-Jackson emphasized that the squad's focus has been on "controlling its own destiny." She said the team would clinch a home tournament game on Tuesday if they "take care of business on the road and get these two victories." However, if the Jacks fail to capitalize on both opportunities then tiebreakers would come into play and their would be scenarios in which HSU could find itself traveling for the first game of the CCAA Tournament.
"Sonoma will show us different defenses that we will have to be prepared for and we've been working all week on," said Bento-Jackson. "There's the Xs and Os and things that we've continually gone over this week but it's also the mindset, the mentality of our basketball team right now. Sonoma State is going to be extremely hungry, as they're fighting to get into that spot for the postseason tournament, which is scary in itself. It's about executing what we need to do and playing hard, intense basketball for 40 minutes regardless of who the opponent is."
The Lumberjack attack will rely on the contributions of Turner, who leads the squad this season averaging 18.2 points per game, and Isamar Conde with 10.1.
Asked about the keys to victory, Bento-Jackson said, "Certainly, on the offensive end, we have to take care of the ball and work for the best shot selection possible, as we always do. Against Sonoma State in particular, we don't want to come down and take any early, rushed shots, but we do want to play an uptempo game. We want to get ball movement and really force them to play half-court defense, which in reality will give us the best shot selection."
