The new look Sacramento State women’s basketball team suffered a seven point loss in their exhibition matchup against Jessup on Oct. 26.
Coming off a historic 2022-2023 season that ended with the program’s first Big Sky Championship and appearance in the NCAA tournament, the Hornets lost many key pieces to the team. Among those losses were head coach Mark Campbell, Big Sky Conference MVP guard Kahlaijah Dean and All-Big Sky center Isnelle Natabou.
First- year head coach for Sac State, Aaron Kallhoff, has a tough task ahead of him to try and rebuild the program with only five players returning and nine newcomers.
Redshirt sophomore guard Benthe Versteeg is one of the five returners from last season’s team. Versteeg, who mostly came off the bench last season, had a bigger role as the team’s primary ball handler in the exhibition.
“Only returners have the experience of what we’ve done last year so we need to show that to the freshmen,” Versteeg said.
The game started out poorly for Sac State as Jessup’s senior guard Andrea Jovicevic scored the first 10 points of the game.
After a timeout, the Hornets were able to stop the run with a layup by freshman forward Summah Hanson and a mid range shot by senior forward Solape Amusan.
Hanson looked like one of the best newcomers on the team as she picked up four points, three rebounds and one steal in the quarter. Hanson finished the game with a team-high tying 16 points and a team-high nine rebounds.
Sac State’s defense came alive with two turnovers forced by Amusan and better shot contests. Versteeg was able to capitalize off of these turnovers with a pair of layups to cut the deficit to three.
The Hornets continued to play great defense as they held the Warriors to only three points on one out of 13 shooting in the second quarter.
Sac State took their first lead of the game after good ball movement resulted in a corner three-point shot by redshirt freshman Sophia Lee.
“After starting off rough, getting down 10-0, I thought we regrouped and I felt decent going into half,” Kallhoff said.
Things really started to go downhill for Sac State in the third quarter. The Hornets committed nine turnovers and only scored five points.
“We broke off plays a lot and that caused turnovers,” Kallhoff said. “Some of them in their inexperiences pushed the panic button and that forced turnovers.”
Through the first two quarters, half of Jessup’s shot attempts came from beyond the arc, but not enough were falling. To compensate, the Warriors adjusted and got to the rim a lot more in the second half.
The Hornets didn’t have an answer for the Warriors’ interior play, as 10 of their 12 third- quarter points came off of layups.
A late three-pointer by Versteeg ended a near five minute scoring drought and gave the Hornets a one point lead going into the fourth quarter.
Versteeg continued to thrive in her increased role as she made back-to-back layups to start the fourth quarter. She made the second one through contact and converted the and-one.
The Warriors offense was still getting the shots they wanted and they went on a 6-0 run to take the lead with four minutes to go.
Sac State couldn’t get back into the game continuing to turn the ball over in the final minutes. The Hornets finished the game with a total of 23 turnovers, 14 of them came in the second half.
“We got beat in a lot of areas that we shouldn’t get beat in. That’s going to fall on me,” Kallhoff said. “Now it’s time to regroup and really dig into what we need to do to get the job done.”
The exhibition didn’t go the way the Hornets wanted it to, but it was the first time many of these players got to play with each other.
“We’re going to learn a lot, learn from our mistakes and we’re going to come back better,” Hanson said.
The Hornets will travel to Seattle, Washington to face the Washington Huskies for the first official game of the season on Monday at 5:30 p.m.
