In the midst of an eight-game losing streak, the Sacramento State women’s basketball team will host Montana State and the conference leading Montana in back-to-back games.

The 3-19 Hornets will face Montana State today and Montana on Thursday.

Coming off an 83-59 loss to Idaho State on Saturday, the Hornets had a poorly played first half, said coach Dan Muscatell.

The game was the Hornets’ first match-up at home in over three weeks. The team shot 22-69 and hit only three threes for the night.

“We didn’t guard anybody, we didn’t execute offensively or hit shots, and we didn’t rebound,” Muscatell said.

With 9-12 Montana State coming up first on the schedule, the Hornets will be facing a team Muscatell described as the “most improved” team in the conference.

The team isn’t planning to change its game plan drastically, said senior Stephanie Cherry, but the players have to stay focused in practice to prepare for the back-to-back games.

“We don’t have as much time to prepare for the other teams’ personnel, so we have to stay precise in a short amount of time,” Cherry said.

The Hornets have to come out stronger in the first half of their games, Cherry said, so they wouldn’t have to “dig themselves out of a hole” in the second.

Mathematically not out of the running for the Big Sky tournament, senior Kim Sheehy said the team has to get these two home games and snag wins on the road to still make a run at the tourney.

“This is our chance to turn a corner in the last part of the season,” Sheehy said.

Thursday’s game against the conference-leading Montana (20-2) will be the second-to-last series at home, until the team returns on Feb. 22 to face Portland State.

Matthew Beltran can be reached at [email protected]