Tuesday Teaser: Vikings Host Warner Pacific for Exhibition

TIPOFF
The Portland State women's basketball team is gearing up for their second season under head coach Karlie Burris, who has been working hard to prepare the Vikings for regular season play. The team comes into the 2026-27 season with fresh faces: seven freshmen and two redshirt freshmen join the ship (making the Vikings the youngest roster in the Big Sky conference), as well as three transfers.

The Vikings will see the team in action for the first time in an exhibition game against Warner Pacific on Tuesday, Oct. 27 (7 p.m. tipoff).

EXHIBITION: PORTLAND STATE vs. WARNER PACIFIC
GAME DETAILS: Tuesday, Oct. 27, 7 p.m. PT, Portland, Ore. (Viking Pavilion)
LIVE STATS
SCOUTING WARNER PACIFIC:

Last season, the Warner Pacific University Knights had an 11-17 record in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) and a 7-13 Cascade Collegiate Conference (CCC) record.
KJ Custer and Bryten Gumke led the Knights last season in three-pointers with 34 each. Custer started 26 of the team's 28 games during the 2025-26 season and was second in total points with 267.
Shielteal Watah led the team in scoring with 11.4 points per game.
The Knights' biggest win last season came in a 98-68 performance versus Walla Walla University on Feb. 7, 2026.
Warner Pacific closed out their 2025-26 season with a 76-50 loss against Eastern Oregon University in the CCC Tournament.

ALL TIME SERIES:

Dating back to 2010, the Vikings have a 6-1 record against the Knights, not including three exhibition wins (88-51 W on Oct. 30, 2025; 79-51 W on Oct. 30, 2019; 75-45 W on Nov. 2, 2012). The biggest score differential the Vikings saw in a game against Warner Pacific was 54, in a 102-49 win on Nov. 9, 2018.

QUICK HITTERS:

The Vikings enter their second year under head coach Karlie Burris, as well as associate head coach Kerri Nakamoto and assistant coach Hailey King.
Assistant coach Jodi Page joins the Vikings from Sacramento State, where she helped lead the Hornets to a semifinal appearance at the 2026 Big Sky tournament.
After Burris only had one recruit out of 14 players on last year's roster, she will have more ownership of this year's roster having brought in 10 newcomers. She's also coached the Vikings' five returners for a year.
Last season, the Vikings had an overall record of 6-25, 2-16 in Big Sky conference play.
Kyleigh Brown led the team in points (517), points per game (16.7), three-pointers (37), minutes played (1035), field goals (181) and free throws (118).
The Vikings won their home opener last season, 89-52, against Willamette on Nov. 11, 2025. That was their highest scoring game of the 2025-26 season, as well as their highest score differential (37).
The 2026-27 Vikings are the youngest team in the Big Sky. They welcome seven freshmen: Nihoa Dunn, Emma Zuniga, Aspen McClees, Maaya Lucas, Alex Padilla, Maile Starns, and Liv Collins. Two redshirt freshmen hope to see action this season: Kailee Field and Ryme Jaekel.
Three players join the Vikings from the transfer portal for the 2026-27 season: junior Teagan Colvin (UNLV), sophomore Jordyn Smith (Cal Poly Humboldt), and sophomore Sara Barhoum (Oregon).
Besides Field and Jaekel, the Vikings only have three returning faces: Brown, senior Laynee Torres-Kahapea, and senior Kirstine Munk.

COACHING STAFF:

Head coach Karlie Burris returns to the helm for the second year. She has a 6-25 record with the Vikings.
Burris came to the Vikings after being part of a highly successful four-year stretch at UNLV from 2021-25. Serving as an assistant coach under Lindy La Rocque, Burris helped lead the Lady Rebels to four straight Mountain West Conference regular-season titles, as well as three Mountain West Conference tournament titles in 2022, 2023 and 2024.
Kerri Nakamoto, associate head coach and Burris' "top draft choice," also enters her second season at Portland State. Nakamoto came to the Vikings after four years as an assistant with Santa Clara University (2021-25). She helped lead the Broncos to a 25-win season and a postseason berth in the WBIT where they made the second round in 2023-24.
Hailey King, assistant coach, followed head coach Karlie Burris from UNLV to Portland State and will serve her second year as an assistant coach for the Vikings during the 2026-27 season.
Jodi Page, assistant coach, joins the Vikings for the 2026-27 season. Burris and Page overlapped while both assistant coaches at Cal State Fullerton during the 2019-20 season.