In a fight for supremacy in the Big Sky Conference, the Sacramento State women’s basketball team lost 69-46 on Wednesday at the Hornets Nest to a Weber State team undefeated in conference.

The Wildcats continued its conference dominance as the Hornets offense fell out of sync in the game and players hard time finding each other on the court.

Coach Dan Muscatell saw as his team wasted possessions and didn’t take care of the ball. Feeling the pressure from the Wildcats’ defense, Muscatell said everything his team was trying to do was “painfully” difficult.

“We created that, I also think that (Weber State) did a pretty good job against us too,” Muscatell said. “They got up, they pressured us and they took us out of some things that we wanted to do, you got to give them some credit for that too.”

The Wildcats capitalized on Hornets miscues by scoring 24 points off of 23 turnovers.

Senior guard Kim Sheehy topped the box score for the Hornets, by scoring 14 points while going 4-for-16 and chipping in two assists, but the Hornets play was inconsistent in the first half.

The first half was filled with ups and downs for the Hornets, despite bringing the game within one point with 7:28 to go.

After a made free throw attempt by the Weber State’s Tashina Taylor, down 19-21, the Sac State offense started to deteriorate and scored only two more times in the half. The Wildcats pulled ahead and went into the locker room up 23-37.

“In the first half we just weren’t executing our stuff,” said Sheehy, who was the only Hornet to score in double figures. “We weren’t doing what we do everyday in practice and that cause us to not get open shots, we struggled.”

In the second half the Hornets were unable to keep up with the Wildcats’ shooting. Time dwindled off the clock as the Wildcats maintained a nine-point lead going into the 10 minute mark.

The Wildcats pulled ahead as far as a 29-point lead. It wasn’t until the Hornets entered the final minutes when the offense had some success moving the ball and scoring, Sheehy said.

Freshman Kelli Davis described tonight’s game as a lost opportunity for the Hornets to break into the top of the pack in the Big Sky as she was shooting on the court after the game.

“This was a tough lose because if we would’ve won tonight, we would’ve been (tied for) second in the Big Sky,” said Davis, who missed two shots in five minutes of action.

Muscatell said his freshman and sophomore players had good and bad moments in the game, but playing a consistent game is the biggest thing he’s trying to teach his team in the transition from high school to college ball.

“We got to play hard, we got play smart, and we got to play together,” Muscatell said. “And the expectation is that we got to play at that level every time.”

The game marked the 21st match-up between the two teams. Weber leads the series 20-1.

The only win Sac State had against the Wildcats was in January 6, 2000 where the Hornets pulled away with a 66-44 victory in the Hornets Nest.

Taylor led the Wildcats in scoring with 15 points on 7-for-8 shooting.

Matthew Beltran can be reached at [email protected]