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PORTLAND, Ore. — It's been more than 10 years since the Portland State women's basketball team started a season 4-0, and more than 40 years since the Vikings won their first four games by double digits. But the Vikings brought those two generations of Vikings together Saturday – fittingly on Thanksgiving weekend – as they beat Seattle 68-43 for their fourth straight double-digit win to open the 2018-19 season.
 
The Vikings haven't been 4-0 to start a season since 2007-08, when they went 5-0 to open the year. Additionally, only one other Viking team has started the season with four straight double-digit wins, and that was way back in the 1976-77 season.
 
What's more, the Vikings got to 4-0 while beating their second straight postseason team in Seattle U, which made the NCAA tournament as the WAC tournament champions last season. The Vikings also beat UC Davis 65-50 on Nov. 16, after the Aggies made the quarterfinals of the WNIT tournament as the two-time defending Big West regular-season champion.
 
"Our wins are coming against good teams," Portland State head coach Lynn Kennedy said of his team's hot start. "They're coming against postseason teams. We've had to step up these last two games. I felt like we did last Friday against UC Davis and then tonight against Seattle U. I like where we're at."
 
Saturday's win wasn't always so pretty for the Vikings (4-0), as both teams struggled to shoot the ball through the first two and a half quarters. The Redhawks (0-5) took advantage of the Vikings' shooting struggles to cut the Vikings' lead to four at 35-31 midway through the third quarter. The Vikings had led by as many as 15 points earlier in the game, but made just two of 18 shots between the under-5 media timeout in the second quarter to a PSU-called timeout with 5:35 left in the third quarter.
 
"At the media timeout in the third, I was like, 'look, these guys are playing. We have the lead. But they're still trying to catch up. Let's go now. Let's start doing the things we do.' We were getting the shot opportunities. We just weren't knocking them down."
 
Fortunately, things started to fall for the Vikings at the end of third quarter while the team's defense stiffened against the Redhawks. The Redhawks had made six of their last 10 shots before the Vikings' timeout in the third quarter, but made just one of their next 20 shots while the Vikings stretched their lead to as many as 29 points.
 
The Vikings opened the fourth quarter on a 23-2 run, and didn't allow the Redhawks to score another field goal until there were 44 seconds left in the game. Freshman guard Desirae Hansen opened the period with a three-pointer from the top of the arc, while sophomore point guard Kylie Jimenez followed with a steal and assist to a sprinting Sidney Rielly for a fast-break layup.
 
Seattle came back with a jumper from Joana Alves at the 8:42 mark, but the Vikings scored the next 18 points and didn't allow Seattle to score again until there was less than a minute left in the game.
 
Quality assists led to a pair of baskets that put the Vikings up 53-37 as Hansen hit Rielly for a driving layup off an in-bounds play, while Rielly, Ashley Bolston and Jordan Stotler combined for good triangular passing on the right side of the court that led to a Bolston jumper in the paint with 7:23 remaining. Bolston grabbed one of her three offensive rebounds in the game a little later, before turning and passing to a wide open Ana Tainta, who hit a three-pointer from the left wing to put the Vikings up 21 at 58-37.
 
Sophomore forward Savannah Dhaliwal capped the Vikings' fourth-quarter run with back-to-back baskets, hitting a baseline jumper with 2:19 remaining before crashing the offensive glass for a put back that made it 66-37 Vikings with 1:44 remaining.
 
The Vikings held the Redhawks to just eight points in the fourth quarter, the sixth time this season the Vikings have held an opponent to less than 10 points in a period. The Vikings also held the Redhawks to five points in the first quarter Saturday, and held UC Davis to just five points in the second quarter of their game on Nov. 16. The Vikings held San Jose State to under 10 points in the first (7 points) and second (4 points) quarters of their game on Nov. 11, and held Warner Pacific to eight points in the fourth quarter on Nov. 9.
 
"We've been having one of those quarters every game here," Kennedy said after Saturday's fourth quarter. "Tonight it was the fourth. It had been mainly our first or second quarters earlier in the season, but tonight it happened to be our fourth and I'm glad it came because we needed it."
 
Senior Pia Jurhar kept the Vikings in front earlier in the game, as she scored 11 of the Vikings' 15 points in the second quarter, and assisted on the Vikings' only other field goal in the period. Jurhar followed two free throws from Hansen with five straight points, scoring her first bucket of the period with a circus-style, no-look hook shot that made it 17-5 Vikings.
 
Jurhar followed with a jumper from the elbow off a pass from Rielly with 7:21 remaining, and then returned the favor a little later, handing off a pass to Rielly from the high post that made it 22-8 Vikings. Jurhar added two more field goals later in the quarter, hitting another hook shot from the middle of the paint and a mid-range baseline jumper that made it 28-13.
 
The Redhawks would tighten the game after Jurhar's last field goal of the second quarter, but the Vikings maintained their lead throughout before running away over the last 15 minutes of the game.
 
Jurhar finished with a double-double of 13 points and 15 rebounds against the Redhawks, and added two assists, two blocks and a steal. Jurhar's 15 rebounds led all players in the game, and were one off her career high of 16, which she set almost exactly a year ago against Multnomah on Nov. 22, 2017.
 
Bolston led all players with 16 points thanks to going 7-of-8 from the free throw line, while Rielly joined Bolston and Jurhar in double figures with 14 points.
 
The Vikings held the Redhawks to just 14-of-55 shooting from the field Saturday, making the Redhawks the fourth straight team that has failed to over 30 percent against the Vikings to open the season. The Redhawks shot .255 against the Vikings, just above the average for a Viking opponent coming into the game of .251. San Jose State recorded the best field goal percentage of any team against the Vikings when they shot .266 on Nov. 11, which at the time was the worst by a Division I opponent against the Vikings since Loyola Marymount shot .242 on Dec. 11, 2010.
 
The Vikings will now carry a good deal of momentum into their rivalry game against cross-town University of Portland next Saturday at the Viking Pavilion. The Vikings and Pilots will tipoff at 2 p.m. (PT).
 
Game Notes: The Vikings improved to 6-9 all time against Seattle with Saturday's win…The Vikings have won two of their last three against the Redhawks, after losing five straight in the series from 2012-15…Bolston's 16 points against the Redhawks give her 978 points in her career, leaving her just 22 points shy of becoming the 18th member of the 1,000-point club at Portland State…The 43 points scored by the Redhawks were a season-low for a Viking opponent this season…The Vikings assisted on 19 of their 23 field goals Saturday, giving them 87 assists on 110 total field goals this season (79.1 percent).