SDSU opened the regular season at Frost Arena with a blowout victory.

It wasn’t much of a contest but SDSU’s 74-35 rout of Division II St. Cloud State on Nov. 11 still counts.

Head coach Aaron Johnston made sure his team wasn’t focusing on the level of competition before the game.

“We talked about what we wanted to do in the game and I thought our team responded really well to that … it’s just a good start for us in the regular season,” Johnston said.

Jill Young led the Jacks to victory by tying career-highs with 25 points, including seven three pointers. The win was the 19th consecutive victory in season openers for SDSU.

After the game, Young said her big night came from what the SCSU defense gave her and also credited her teammates for her performance.

“We played well going inside and outside. I guess when [SCSU] doubled inside, they found me on the three and when [SCSU] went to the zone, we worked it around and I was able to get some nice looks and knock some down,” Young said.

The Jackrabbits scored the first 12 points of the game and never felt much pressure from the Huskies, jumping out to a 33-10 lead at halftime in front of 1,668 fans at Frost Arena.

It was a dreadful first half for SCSU, as the Huskies shot a meager 14.8 percent from the field and couldn’t put anything together against a stout Jackrabbit defense that tallied nine steals in the first half alone.

The SDSU offense stayed consistent throughout the game and the Jacks scored with ease, shooting an efficient 52.1 percent from the field and 62.5 percent from three-point range on the night. One of the few negatives in last Friday’s game was turnovers as SDSU turned the ball over a total of 21 times compared to 19 for the Huskies.

Meanwhile, the SCSU offense struggled throughout the contest and finished the game without a double-digit scorer. The Jacks had the clear height advantage in the game and limited the Huskies’ second chances, out-rebounding SCSU 49-27.

Other than the turnovers, Johnston was pleased with his team’s opening night victory.

“We played against a team that plays really hard and I thought we were pushed and had to work hard to make the plays that we did, so we got a lot of good out of this game,” Johnston said.

With the score one-sided all night, Johnston was also able to work in some of the less-used players and freshmen off the bench. In fact, besides Tara Heiser and Megan Waytashek who are out with injury, every player on the roster played eight or more minutes.

“It was good for us to get out and play a regular season game, play here at home, play with a lot of effort and urgency. We also saw some trapping zone, which we’ll see a few times this year … it gave us an idea of what we need to maybe adjust or work on with that style of defense,” Johnston said.

Young agreed that overall it was a good night to get the season started off on the right foot.

“It feels great to get the first [win] under the belt and just have a good start to the season,” Young said.