Cruising to its second conference victory of the season, the men’s basketball team put it together for a night and handed Portland State a 77-60 loss on Thursday at Hornet Gym.

Head coach Jerome Jenkins was pleased with the win, although he thought his team could have played better.

“I’m happy for my seniors. It puts a little pressure on the guys for next year,” he said. “This was a redemption loss (for a Jan. 26 loss at Portland State). Overall I wasn’t happy with the play, but we got the job done.”

Sac State jumped out to a 7-0 lead before yielding 11 straight points to the Vikings. At this juncture, Sac State’s seniors Rame Batta and Rickie Glenn took over, and lit up the scoreboard, on a 11-2 run, putting the Hornets up 18-13.

A three-point bomb by Rene Jacques with 7:30 left in the half brought many of the 1,084 in attendance to their feet. A three-point shot by Batta at the end of the half gave Sac State a 39-30 lead. At the half, Batta and Glenn’s 30 points equaled the point production of the Vikings.

Glenn led the Hornets with 20 points and Batta threw in 18, falling two points short of his career high.

“I wanted to get intense,” Batta said. “But I’m not worried about career highs. If I wanted to, I could score 25 points a game. But I try to get my 10 points and seven assists.”In the second half, the Hornets continued to bring it to the Portland State defense, which appeared to, back on its heels versus the Hornets.

“It seems like every team we play is scared of us,” Batta said.

But Portland State made a run and pulled within 49-47 after it ran of nine straight points. The Vikings jubilation was short lived however as Sac State responded and ended up cruising the rest of the way to the victory.

In the win, senior guard Pablo Gonzalez led the Hornets with a career high eight assists, despite shooting one for 11 from the field. He also grabbed six rebounds and had 10 points.

“Pablo is the best all-around player on the team,” Jenkins said. “He found shooters and the other guys fed off him.”

Gonzalez made an effort to find teammates when he found that his shot wasn’t dropping.”In the first half I wasn’t feeling my shot,” he said. “I’m still going to shoot but I decided it would probably be better to find guys.”

Junior Arinze Anoruo led the Hornets with 10 rebounds and also added 10 points.

Tomorrow night, the Hornets play their final home game against Eastern Washington at 7:00pm in Hornet Gym.