By Kelvin Ang 

By far the most remarkable thing about Idaho State’s 63-58 win over Northern Colorado on Saturday, for me, was the fact that it propelled the Bengals into third place in the Big Sky standings, all by themselves.

Portland State and Montana are 1-2, and there Idaho State lies, in sole possession of third with a 4-5 record. Four teams are deadlocked at 4-6. Montana State and idle Weber State are at 3-6. Pretty remarkable stuff.

Anyway, we won’t have room in tomorrow’s paper for my usual notebook, so here it is:

Sheila Adams didn’t have a career scoring night like senior Michelle Grohs did during Idaho State’s 63-58 win over Northern Colorado on Saturday at Reed Gym.
But Adams had Grohs beat on an impressive statistic: number of new career-best marks. In her 40 minutes of work, Adams collected seven rebounds, eight assists and four steals, all unprecedented totals in the freshman guard’s young career.
Her most impressive contribution, in the eyes of her teammates, was her effort on the defensive end. More than once, she forced Northern Colorado turnovers by creeping into the post for a double-team when the Bears least expected it.
“As a freshman, being able to understand and execute in the game our defensive strategy, that’s a very important thing for our team,” junior post Oana Iacovita said.

Could have been worse
Despite the Bengals’ season-high 23 turnovers, they weren’t too worried about that statistic, primarily because the Bears didn’t turn too many of those giveaways into easy fast-break buckets.
More often than not, Idaho State folowed a turnover with a defensive stop of its own. The Bengals forced 16 Bears turnovers and actually held a 21-12 advantage on points off turnovers.
“If they would have gotten scores on all those, it could have been a different game,” senior point guard Jenna Brown said. “That’s something we have to take from it. But we were able to make up for it with good defense.”

Any given Saturday
A week ago, sophomore post Verity Peets played 18 minutes in Idaho State’s 78-77 overtime loss to Weber State. Freshman Jeni Guertin did not enter the game until 4.4 seconds remained in overtime.
The two traded roles Saturday. Not once did Sobolewski motion Peets off the bench, while Guertin played 11 minutes, scoring two points and grabbing three boards.
Sobolewski said Peets was fine.
“It was just one of those things where I put Jeni in, and I felt like Jeni was doing a good job,” Sobolewski said. “Jeni had some pretty good practices leading up to this game, so I felt comfortable doing that.”