PORTLAND, Ore. — The Portland State women's basketball team picked up an early season signature win Saturday, coming back from a nine-point deficit at the start of the fourth quarter to beat UC Davis 66-61 at Viking Pavilion.
 
The victory gave the Vikings (3-2) their second-biggest fourth-quarter comeback in program history, trailing only an 11-point comeback at Southern Utah on March 5, 2021. Freshman Kyleigh Brown scored 14 points in the fourth quarter – two points shy of the program record for a single or fourth quarter – while Alaya Fitzgerald hit a pair of go-ahead three-pointers late, the second of which gave the Vikings the lead for good with just over a minute to go.
 
Rhema Ogele put together a complete game with 16 points and 13 rebounds, her second double-double against the Aggies (3-4) after she had 24 points and 11 rebounds in a 71-62 road victory to open last season.
 
The Vikings have now won three games in a row, with Saturday's victory over the Aggies the best of the bunch.
 
"It was a response," Portland State head coach Chelsey Gregg said of the team's comeback. "UC Davis is a great team. We've seen that on film in the games that they've won and played. We knew we had to be ready to go.
 
"I'm really proud of our team. Different people stepped up. It was a total team win."
 
Brown led the Vikings back at the start of the fourth quarter. She scored 14 of the Vikings' first 16 points in the period, the last of which tied the game at 56-all with 3:57 remaining.
 
She finished with a game-high 18 points on 6-of-10 shooting from the floor. She's now averaging 12.0 points per game over the Vikings' three-game win streak, after being held scoreless in the team's first two games of the season.
 
"For a freshman, any player, but for a freshman to step up in those moments and take over, that was special," Gregg said of Brown. "We thought we had some mismatches she could take advantage of. It shows how much our team believes in her and how hard she works and is ready for the moment. She's a special player."
 
Fitzgerald took the baton from Brown for the final minutes of the game. After UC Davis re-took a 58-56 with 2:36 remaining, Fitzgerald hit the first to her two go-ahead three pointers. The second came the next time down the court, answering a three-pointer from the Aggies on the other end.
 
Fitzgerald fed Ogele for a layup in the paint to make it a three-point game with 25 seconds remaining. Ogele then got a big rebound after the Aggies missed a potential game-tying three-pointer with less than five seconds remaining, and Fitzgerald added two free throws after that to give the game its final score.
 
The Viking defense did not allow the Aggies to score over the final minute. No attempts came inside the three-point line, in fact.
 
That was as big of a response as anything Brown, Fitzgerald or Ogele did offensively. The Aggies seemed to find their shooting stroke with a 22-point third quarter in which they shot 61.5 percent (8-of-13) from the field and 62.5 percent (5-of-8) from three-point range. That helped the Aggies build as much as an 11-point lead at 49-38 with 52 seconds remaining in the third quarter.
 
But the Vikings stiffened their defense in the fourth quarter, holding the Aggies to just 5-of-18 (.278) from the field over the final 10 minutes. The Aggies were just 2-of-12 over the final six minutes of the game as the Vikings completed their comeback.
 
The strong fourth quarter meant the Vikings held UC Davis to a season-low 35.9 percent (23-of-64) over the course of the whole game.
 
Defense has been a common theme during the Vikings' three-game win streak. They held Cal State Fullerton to 28.6 percent shooting in last Sunday's 61-52 win, and came into the game ranked third in the Big Sky in both field goal percentage and three-point field goal percentage.
 
The Aggies, for their part, came into Saturday's game leading the Big West Conference in scoring offense, field goal percentage and three-point field goal percentage. That raised the question over which team's strength was going to win out Saturday.
 
Fortunately for the Vikings, it was theirs.
 
"We've got to out-work teams. We've to put on a hard hat and out-work teams. Whether that's with our hustle, or mental toughness, or whether we're going to share the ball more than most," Gregg said.
 
Besides Brown (18) and Ogele (16), Fitzgerald scored eight of her 10 points in the fourth quarter. Taylor Moffat added seven points to go with four rebounds and four assists, while Laynee Torres-Kahapea and Jamia Carter scored six and five, respectively.
 
Those three – Moffat, Torres-Kahapea and Carter – did the majority of their work in the second quarter in which the Vikings erased an early deficit to take a lead at halftime. They accounted for 14 of the team's 18 points in the second quarter as the Vikings turned a 17-12 deficit after the first quarter into a 30-27 halftime lead.
 
The Vikings will take momentum into next week's Big Sky-Summit Challenge. The Vikings will play two games as part of the Challenge, hosting Omaha Wednesday at 7 p.m. before playing Denver on the road Saturday at 12 p.m. PT / 1 p.m. MT.
 
Game Notes: The Vikings improved to 13-5 all-time against UC Davis with Saturday's win…Ogele's double-double was the eighth of her career, two of which have come against UC Davis…The Vikings outscored the Aggies in the paint (28-22), off turnovers (16-10) and off the bench (27-15).
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