Jackrabbits Sweep Season Series with Idaho

Saturday, December 15

Frost Arena

7 p.m.

South Dakota State University

Idaho

12/15/2007 1:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball

By: SDSU Sports Info

BROOKINGS, S.D. ? South Dakota State need a win to sweep the season series and even up the all-time series with Idaho on Saturday, and even though they struggled at time times to get it, the Jackrabbits accomplished both goals with a 70-59 win in front of 1,754 fans at Frost Arena.

Not only does the win snap a four-game losing streak, it gives the Jacks a 4-6 overall record heading into Tuesday's game against Denver. Idaho falls to 2-7 with the loss.

Sophomore Kai Williams led the Jackrabbits with 17 points, 11 of which came in the second half, and added nine rebounds. Freshmen Clint Sargent finished the night with a career-high 13 points while Michael Palarca added a career-high ten points.

The Jackrabbits continue to dominate the glass, out rebounding the Vandals 35-23 on Saturday. Mohamed Bert? did most of the damage on the boards for the Jacks in pulling down a season-high ten rebounds.

The game got off two a slow start, with each team committing a pair of turnovers in the first five minutes, a trend that continued for most of the first half, which resulted in three ties and eight lead changes.

The Vandals never led by more than one at any point in the game, and their last one-point lead came at 32-31 with 3:09 left in the first half.

Palarca broke that tie with his second three-pointer of the half and even though Idaho would tie the game one more time at 39-all with 18 minutes left in the game, the Vandals would never lead again.

Up three with 4:04 left in the contest, the Jacks put the game away with a 9-0 run, which boosted the Jackrabbit lead to 68-56 with 46 seconds left to play.

Although the Jacks won the rebounding battle, they did commit 21 turnovers on the night, while Idaho committed 18 in the loss.

After shooting an impressive 65.2 percent (15-of-23) from the floor in the first half, Idaho struggled to shoot 32.1 percent (9-of-28) in the second half for a total of 47.1 percent in the game.

The Jacks shot an even 55 percent (10-of-20) from the floor in the first half and shot 43.5 percent (10-of-23) in the second half for a game total of 48.8 percent.

The Jackrabbits play one more game before a ten-day holiday break on Tuesday, when they host the 3-5 Denver Pioneers. Tip off from Frost Arena is schedule for 7 p.m.