The Sacramento State women’s basketball team lost 76-54 in a game dominated by reigning Big Sky champions Northern Arizona.

The Hornets, now 2-12, returned home to the Hornets’ nest after a 77-42 loss to the No. 14 Louisville on Sunday.

The Lumberjacks controlled the ball during the first half, out rebounding the Hornets by nine and winning the turnover battle by six. The Lumberjacks led 36-19 at the half.

“It was our own fault, we beat ourselves and that was the first half,” said guard Kim Sheehy.

The game got even more out of hand for the Hornets in the second half as the Lumberjacks broke out to a 32 point lead with only 12:32 left to go.

The Hornets’ two leading scorers Sheehy and Stephanie Cherry were also held to only three points each after both players went scoreless in the first half.

The halftime speech was short, coach Muscatell said, as he told his players they had go and work harder.

The Hornets showed a stronger performance in the second half, as the Hornets improved to 50 percent shooting in the half. Muscatell attributed the increase to a stronger defensive effort that forced 13 turnovers. The team finished with 20 forced turnovers for the night.

“We haven’t forced 20 turnovers in a long time, so those are the things you going to build on as a coach and come back to look for improvement in those areas,” Muscatell said.

Freshman forward Erika Edwards, who leads the freshman class in points, had a strong performance leading the Hornets in scoring with 14.

“It doesn’t really matter to me what I do, I’m just trying to help the team and get a win,” Edwards said. “But I think we dug ourselves a big enough hole we couldn’t get ourselves out of.”

The Hornets started to battle back, as the team scored 14 points in the last three minutes of the game, but was too little too late as the Lumberjacks’ early lead was too much to overcome.

With Sac State playing their first conference opponent, the Lumberjacks looked to reverse its last-second 61-59 lost to the Hornets last season, with Sheehy scoring the game-winning lay-up.

Alyssa Wahl led the Lumberjacks in scoring with 25 points on 12 of 19 shooting. Wahl said it was important to start off the Big Sky season strong.

“As our first game in the Big Sky we wanted to start off the season strong and we remember what happened to us here last year,” Wahl said.

Matthew Beltran can be reached at [email protected].