The Sacramento State Hornets were blown out Saturday night at home by the Big Sky Conference-leading Portland State Vikings, 79-56.

Reaching the playoffs became more difficult for the Hornets with the loss, dropping their record to 4-18 and 2-9 in the Big Sky Conference. The Vikings currently lead the conference with a record of 15-8, 8-2.

The Vikings had three players score in double-digits: Jeremiah Dominguez (20), Scott Morrison (18) and Deonte Huff (14). Morrison also had 11 rebounds and six blocks.

“We played against a team that was better than us tonight,” said Hornets coach Jerome Jenkins, who is currently coaching his eighth season with Sac State. “It wasn’t a fluke, they beat us pretty good (tonight), so we played against a team that was older and better than us.”

The Hornets never had the lead since opening tip-off. They were down by as many as 17 during the first half, but were able to cut down the Vikings’ lead to 12 at halftime.

During the opening minutes of the second half, the Hornets were unable to score a field goal for more than seven minutes which led to the Vikings getting their largest lead of the night with 36.

“We always come out of the second half slow,” said forward Darnell Ferguson, who finished the game with five points and six rebounds. “We just couldn’t get it done offensively and defensively.”

“Our defensive plans were to stop penetration by (Deonte) Huff,” he said, “and try to stop (Jeremiah) Dominguez.”

Sac State freshman guard/forward Jason Davis finished the game with a team-high 12 points and was perfect from the field (4-4). He also recorded five rebounds.

“They were capitalizing on our mistakes,” Davis said, “and shots that were usually going in for us weren’t going in for us.”

“We had a hard time containing (Dominguez) and keeping him from getting to the basket and we just weren’t rotating fast enough on defense,” he said.

The next game for the Hornets will be on a three-game road trip beginning with Montana on Thursday. Opening Tip-off is at 6:05 p.m.

Alexander Villanueva can be reached at [email protected]