PORTLAND, Ore. — If NC State had the "Cardiac Pack" in 1983, this year's Portland State women's basketball team might have earned the nickname as the "Heart Spike Viks." Certainly after this weekend as the Vikings pulled out their second straight one-point victory Saturday, beating Idaho State – a team that has traditionally tormented the Vikings – 48-47 at Viking Pavilion.
 
The Vikings beat Weber State, 65-64, on a three-pointer from Esmeralda Morales with 1.9 seconds remaining Thursday night. Saturday afternoon against the Bengals, there would be no last-second shot, just defense…defense…and more defense. The Bengals had the ball, down one, for the final 40 seconds of regulation and yet couldn't get a shot to fall.
 
The Vikings' big shots came outside of the final minute, as Cinco McCartney hit back-to-back three-pointers in the final minutes. McCartney's second three-pointer put the Vikings up 48-47 with 1:53 remaining, and the Vikings held on from there.
 
Saturday's win over the Bengals marks just the second time the Vikings have beaten Idaho State in their past 24 meetings. The Vikings hadn't won at home against Idaho State since 2011 coming into Saturday, but finally broke through against the Bengals.
 
"Really proud of the team and how they fought until the end," Portland State head coach Chelsey Gregg said after the game. "We just found ways tonight. It wasn't pretty, but we found a way."
 
The Vikings (9-8, 4-3 Big Sky) held Idaho State without a field goal over the final 4:31 of game time. In that time, the Vikings forced the Bengals (8-10, 3-4 Big Sky) into four turnovers and four missed shots. Idaho State's Callie Bourne hit one of two from the free throw line to put the Bengals up 47-42 with 3:33 remaining, but that would be the last time Idaho State would score.
 
Everyone knew Saturday would be a defensive battle. Idaho State came in leading the Big Sky in scoring defense, field goal percentage defense and three-point field goal percentage defense, while the Vikings ranked third in scoring defense and first in steals.
 
True to form, both teams held the other to under 40.0 percent shooting. The Bengals ended up out-shooting the Vikings .380-to-.347, and also dominated the glass, out-rebounding the Vikings 41-to-25. However, 15 offensive rebounds only turned into 10 second-chance points for the Bengals, and the Vikings countered with 11 second-chance points of their own. The Vikings also forced Idaho State into 17 turnovers while committing only 10 themselves.
 
"It was just possession basketball where every possession counts," Gregg said. "That was our top key today, was to dominate defensively. I don't know if we dominated, but the reality is we held a team to 47 points. That's pretty good. We just have to continue to find ways to score. But we got them away from what they do.
 
"We've got to clean up the rebounds. We're playing with fire here a little bit with continuing to not win the battle on the boards."
 
The Vikings' defensive effort helped them stay in contact with the Bengals when Idaho State stretched its lead to nine early in the second half. The teams went back-and-forth in a first half that featured 13 lead changes, but then the Bengals asserted control early in the third quarter.
 
The Bengals scored on five of their first seven possessions of the third quarter – by far their best offensive stretch of the game – and pushed their lead to nine at 36-27 with 5:55 remaining. But the Vikings held them to just two points for the rest of the quarter, while cutting it down to a six-point deficit entering the fourth.
 
Alaya Fitzgerald scored the final five points of the quarter for the Vikings, part of a career night for her. Fitzgerald's sister and her sister's boyfriend sang the national anthem before the game, and the Vikings may have them sing the anthem at every game now after seeing how Fitzgerald responded. The sophomore guard finished with a career-high 24 points while shooting 7-of-10 overall and 4-of-6 from three-point range. Her 24 points were exactly half of the team's 48 in the game, and she split it evenly between 12 in the first half and 12 in the second.
 
"That's what she's capable of," Gregg said about Fitzgerald. "Tonight, it was points, but she can have that sort of game defensively, too. Hopefully it gives her confidence moving forward."
 
Fitzgerald's fourth three-pointer of the game – another career high for her – came with 5:29 left in the fourth quarter and cut it to a two-point deficit. With the defense playing her up high on the team's next possession, she drove past her defender to answer an Idaho State bucket on the other end.
 
The Bengals responded with a bucket themselves, but that would be it for them from the field, while the Vikings would get McCartney's two three-pointers late.
 
McCartney's only points in the game came on her two clutch three-pointers, as she finished with six points, five rebounds and two assists. Jada Lewis recorded four points – half of which came in the fourth quarter – while leading the Vikings with six rebounds and adding three assists.
 
Leading scorer Esmeralda Morales was held to just three points Saturday on only three shot attempts. The Vikings likely can't win too many more games this season when that happens, but Fitzgerald made up for it offensively, and the entire team stepped up defensively.
 
It fits the Vikings' recent trend in which they've won four of their last five games, all with different players and different facets of their game stepping up.
 
"Collective team effort. It took everybody who got in tonight to do it, and then our bench was great, too. We just talk about how it's one through 14 for us right now," Gregg said.
 
The weekend sweep of Weber State and Idaho State – albeit by a combined margin of two points – gives the Vikings their first 2-0 conference weekend since 2021. That year, the Vikings played the same opponent twice in the same weekend, so the Vikings hadn't beaten two different conference opponents over the same weekend since they swept a road trip to Northern Arizona and Sacramento State in March of 2020.
 
The challenge now becomes to keep the momentum going over a four-game road trip that starts next weekend in Montana. If they can do that, then Viking fans might put in a request for a little wider margin of victory next time. Just so their hearts don't spike too much.
 
Game Notes: The Vikings improved to 24-42 all time against Idaho State…The Vikings finished 6-of-12 (.500) from three-point range Saturday, much better than the average Idaho State opponent as the Bengals had been holding opponents to just 25.3 percent from beyond the arc coming into the game…Three of the Vikings' six three-pointers came in the fourth quarter…The Vikings outscored the Bengals 16-9 in the final period.