PORTLAND, Ore. — At the beginning of November, Portland State head women's basketball coach Karlie Burris said her first Viking team would need time to grow. Sunday, as the Vikings closed the first month of the basketball season, served as a reminder of that as UC San Diego posted a wire-to-wire, 94-64 win over the Vikings at Viking Pavilion.
 
Shorthanded with only 10 players available, the Vikings (2-5) struggled inside and outside against the Tritons (4-4). Inside, the Tritons outscored the Vikings 48-18 in the paint. Outside, the Tritons shot 11-for-24 (.458) from three-point range where they were +21 on the Vikings, who went just 4-for-18 (.222) from three themselves.
 
Another slow start put the Vikings in a hole early. The Vikings had a better start Friday, which was key in their 75-64 win over San Jose State. But Sunday marked the fifth time out of six games against Division I opponents that the Vikings have trailed after the opening quarter.
 
The Tritons led 30-14 after the first, with leading scorers Sabrina Ma and Erin Condron already both in double figures. Ma had 12 points while going 3-for-3 from three-point range, while Condron had 11 points on 5-of-9 shooting and four rebounds. The 30 points for the Tritons were the most the Vikings have allowed in a quarter this season.
 
"I don't think we stuck to the scouting report early and they put 30 points up on the board as a result. For us, we just need to clean up the scout and lock in what we need to do earlier," Burris said after the game.
 
"Sabrina Ma wasn't supposed to get nine three-point field goal attempts off [she was 6-for-9 from three]. So that's, again, where us as a coaching staff are going to look at our scouting report and if we're not communicating it clearly enough, then we'll adjust. But we have to dial into the scout."
 
The Vikings opened the second quarter on a 9-3 run to get back within 10. Cici Ellington had four of the nine points for the Vikings, putting her in double figures already after she scored seven of the Vikings' 14 in the opening quarter.
 
The Vikings had a possession to try and cut it to a single-digit game but turned the ball over and never got as close the rest of the way. The Tritons finished the second quarter on a 12-2 run and then led by at least 20 throughout the second half.
 
The Tritons set season highs for a Viking opponent in field goal percentage (.500), three-pointers (11), three-point percentage (.458) and assists (24).
 
"I thought we were doing some out-of-character stuff [defensively]. We just put ourselves in a really bad position of doing things that we didn't want to do. We have to get back to doing what we want to because we did not execute, especially in the first quarter. Again, we're going to be hardest on us as coaches. But we have to look back at how we can communicate and have the team execute what we're saying to them," Burris said of the team's defense.
 
The Vikings tried to counter by getting to the free throw line. They went 28-for-39 (.718) from the line against the Tritons, with the 39 free throw attempts marking the Vikings' most in a game since they had 44 against CSUN on Nov. 11, 2016. The 28 makes were also the Vikings' most since they had 28 in a home win over Montana on Jan. 13, 2020.
 
Kyleigh Brown led the charge from the line going 11-for-12 individually. That accounted for most of her 15 points in the game. Brown's 11 makes from the line were the most by a Viking since Rhema Ogele made 12 against Weber State on March 9, 2024.
 
The Vikings also got a positive out of Ellington, who set a PSU career high for the second straight game with 20 points on 7-of-15 shooting to go with six rebounds. It was the first 20-point game for Ellington since her freshman year at Loyola Marymount during the 2019-20 season, and only the third of her career.
 
"I just appreciated how hard she was playing, and she was actually trying to do what we were asking, so that's what we were really proud of," Burris said of Ellington. "We gave her a shout out in the postgame talk because it starts with playing hard first. We're trying to execute from that standpoint, and we thought she did that tonight."
 
Brown joined Ellington in double figures with her 15 points, the 13th straight game in which Brown has scored in double figures. She added a season-high nine rebounds to her 15 points to go with two assists and two steals.
 
Laynee Torres-Kahapea also went into double figures for the first time since scoring a career-high 22 points in the Vikings' season opener at Hawai'i on Nov. 4. Torres-Kahapea scored 11 points while tying a career high with three three-pointers Sunday.
 
But the Vikings struggled from the field as a whole, going just 16-for-55 (.291) from the field.
 
It's why Burris says the Vikings aren't a finished product yet. They have time to get there. November was just one month of the season, and they have the entire month of December to get ready for the start of Big Sky play on Jan. 1.
 
Game Notes:

• Sunday's game was the first-ever meeting between the Vikings and UC San Diego.
• The Vikings committed only 14 turnovers against a UC San Diego team that came into the game averaging 21.6 turnovers forced per game. However, the Tritons turned that into a 23-5 advantage in points off turnovers.
• The Vikings were without starting forward Ajae Yoakum in the game. Freshman Hannah Chicken earned her first-career start as a result.
• The Vikings will play a third straight home game Wednesday at 7 p.m. as they host South Dakota for the first of two games within the Big Sky-Summit Challenge. The Vikings will then travel to Kansas City Saturday for a 12 p.m. PT / 2 p.m. CT tipoff.

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