Shooting guard Michelle St. Clair, of Sacramento State?s women’s basketball team, already owns a few Big Sky conference and school records with nine games remaining in the regular season. In Thursday night?s contest against visiting Cal State Northridge, she claimed another.

The senior from Grass Valley notched her 52nd 3-pointer of the year to snap the former single-season record (51) six-and-a-half minutes into the game. St. Clair?s basket from the left corner gave her team its first lead of the game at 8-6. Unfortunately for the Hornets, the lead wasn?t in their grasp by game?s end, as the Matadors escaped with the 75-70 victory.

St. Claire, who tallied three more 3-pointers in the second half and wasn?t aware of the record-setting night, admitted that she would have traded it for the win.

Sac State (1-6 in league, 3-14 overall) was looking to avenge the 88-62 thrashing it received from the Matadors (5-4, 9-11) in the second conference game of the season.

Following a 28-point performance that included a 4-of-12 performance from beyond the 3-point arc and an 8-of-8 mark at the free-throw line “It?s an honor, but I don?t even think about it when I?m playing,” St. Claire said. “I just want to win, and we came so close. One of our goals this year was to beat Northridge. Last year, at home, we lost by three and this year it was close again.”

Facing an 11-point halftime deficit, the Hornets managed to make a game out of it down the stretch. Sac State tied the game midway through the second half and was down 71-68 after a Sephora Scoubes layup with 1:08 remaining. But Cal State Northridge guard Sha?Tasha Allen sealed the win when she converted two free throws with :07 left on the clock.

“They took it to us in the second half,” Matador coach Frozena Jerro said.” I thought they played very well with the personnel that they had. But we got the win, and we?re trying to keep it moving forward. We always have a tough time at this place.”

The injury-ravaged Hornets kept it close for most of the contest despite having eight players to work with. Starting point guard Rexanne Rodriguez, forward Tola Tallman, and St. Claire were each forced to play 40 minutes on Thursday.

“We?ve been at this state now for a month-and-a-half, so it?s not like it?s anything new to us,” Hornet head coach Carolyn Jenkins said of her thin lineup. “They know coming out that they have to play a lot of minutes. The key now is to just focus for the entire 40 minutes, and I think that they understand that we have to execute a lot better than what we?re doing.”

At the start, the Hornets had a tough time getting the ball to drop through the hoop, missing several shots from point-blank range. But five Matador turnovers in the first five minutes of the half kept the host squad within striking distance in the early going. Cal State Northridge won despite its 24 turnovers, while the Hornets only had 14.

“I?ve said this all year. It?s the little things that are keeping us from being more successful,” Jenkins said. “When we get seven layup (opportunities) in the beginning of the game and can?t convert, that?s a big problem. We have to get better at that. It?s the mental toughness issue that we have to address.”

In the waning moments of the opening half, Cal State Northridge went up by a 41-30 margin, its largest cushion of the game. The Matadors managed to go on a 5-0 spurt with just 16 seconds remaining.

Following the break, however, the Hornets responded to Jenkins? plea to step up their game mentally.

“In the last seconds, they scored two baskets and that was kind of frustrating,” said Rodriguez, who finished with nine assists and two steals. “But we knew that we could come back. We just fought back and tried to stay positive.”

The Hornets charged right back into the thick of things with an 18-7 flurry capped by a pair of Rodriguez free throws that knotted the score at 48 with 12:14 left. St. Clair highlighted the attack with three 3-pointers within a three-minute span.

“That was very disappointing,” Jerro said of relinquishing the halftime lead. “I wanted us to do some different things (in the second half) and they didn?t work all that well for us.

“We went to our zone for a little bit,” she added. “We knew that (St. Claire) would be the one looking to shoot, and she was the one we gave up the most shots (18) to. I?m sure her eyes lit up when she saw (the zone defense). She just capitalized on that and we didn?t do the job of paying attention of where she is. She?s much too dangerous for us to be playing a zone; we lost her too many times”

St. Claire?s game-high 28 points was joined by Scoubes? 14. Scoubes led the Hornets with nine rebounds. Power forward Tola Tallman pitched in 11 points and hauled down eight rebounds while reserve Torilynn Boyd came off the bench and matched Tallman?s point total.

Allen?s 17 points paced the Matadors while Myesha Saleem and Kristi Rose pitched in 13 apiece. Eleven of Saleem?s 13 came in the first half and she added a game-best 11 rebounds. Rose finished with four blocked shots.

The Hornets have the daunting task of facing Idaho State, which remains undefeated in the Big Sky, on Saturday at Holt Arena. The Bengals are on a 10-game winning streak and the Hornets have yet to beat them since its Big Sky entry in the 1996-1997 season.