Box Score
MOSCOW, Idaho --- Portland head coach Jim Sollars won his 500th game and senior Laiken Dollente scored 20 points as the Pilots defeated the Idaho Vandals 67-56 in a non-conference women’s basketball game at Memorial Gym on Friday night. Sollars, who’s in his 24th year as head coach at UP, has compiled his 500 wins at three different schools during his career.
“We feel good about the win,” said Sollars. “If you live long enough, I guess you can get any number of wins, but it’s always good to win on the road. We just need to keep on plugging away.”
Sollars began his head coaching career in 1976 at Wenatchee Valley Community College, where he tallied 154 wins in seven years. During three years (1983-86) at the helm of Portland State, Sollars added 23 more wins to the resume before moving to The Bluff. While at UP, the native of Longview, Wash., has posted 323 wins. He’s 500-432 (.536) overall, 346-407 (.459) at the NCAA DI level and 323-350 (.480) at Portland. Sollars won his 300th game at UP during the 2007-08 season.
On Friday, Portland led 35-30 at the break before pushing the lead to double digits in the second half. It wasn’t easy as the Vandals pulled within two on a lay-up from Jessica Graham with 7:56 remaining.
But Portland tightened up defense from there and made enough shots at the other end to secure the win. Following the Graham lay-up, UP juniors Lauren Angel and Jessica Clemens hit jumpers and sophomore ReZina TecleMariam connected on a three-pointer to make it a 60-51 game with 4:24 showing on the clock.
Idaho then made it a six-point game with 2:52 left before Dollente hit four throws and the Pilots forced the Vandals into a handful of misses and turnovers put the game on ice.
Portland wins its third straight and its sixth of its last seven games to improve to 6-3 on the year. Idaho, which is better than its record might indicate after playing a challenging schedule, falls to 1-9.
Dollente, who leads the Pilots in scoring this season and ranks fifth all-time at UP with 1,508 career points, reaches 20 points for the third time in the last four games. All four of her field goals came from three-point range and she went eight-for-eight from the free throw line. She is already the most accurate free throw shooter in program history. The native of Yakima, Wash., also had a season-high nine rebounds,
TecleMariam did a little bit of everything against the Vandals, finishing with 10 points, a career-high nine rebounds and six assists. She was four of seven from the field and 2-for-4 on three-pointers. Perhaps more importantly, she had zero turnovers on the night.
Angel also scored in double figures for Portland with 10 points.
The game was clean as UP had a season-low 12 turnovers, while Idaho had 15.
The Pilots, who outrebounded the Vandals 41-36, shot 40.3 percent (25-for-62), hit eight three-pointers and went 9-for-11 at the free throw line. UP’s bench outscored that of Idaho’s 18-3.
Graham finished with 18 points for the Vandals and Rachele Kolke had 11. Portland held Idaho to 33.9 percent (19-for-56) shooting, while the Vandals shot 7-for-24 on three-pointers and 11-for-14 from the line.
The Pilots will go after its fourth straight win on Sunday as they visit the Washington State Cougars in Pullman, Wash., for a 1:00 p.m. game.
