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No. 5 Portland State knocked off its second higher-ranked opponent in as many days with a 62-47 victory over No. 2 Montana Friday afternoon at Cheney, Wash., in a semifinal game of the Big Sky Conference women’s basketball tournament. The win was the Vikings’ third victory over the Lady Griz this season and gave the preseason league favorites a spot in Saturday’s tournament championship game.

Portland State (17-14) will face No. 6 Montana State (18-13) in the title game. The Bobcats also registered their second straight upset in two days, knocking off No. 1 Eastern Washington in Friday’s second semifinal, 65-57.

Montana ends its season with a 15-14 record.

As they were in their 72-60 victory at Missoula on Feb. 12, the Vikings were the aggressor Friday, out-rebounding the Lady Griz by 12 and holding Montana to just 18 second-half points on 26.9 percent shooting to break open a five-point game at the half.

PSU grabbed 14 offensive rebounds and shot 42.6 percent while limiting Montana to 34.0 percent. It was the first time in eight games the Lady Griz shot under 40 percent.

“Giving up 62 points usually gives you a chance to win, but we just couldn’t generate enough offense today,” UM coach Robin Selvig said.

Montana fell behind by as many as 11 points in the first half but trimmed the deficit to five at the break, 34-29.

PSU’s second-half lead reached 14 points on a fast-break three-point play by Eryn Jones at the 13:02 mark.

Montana got 3-pointers from senior Lauren Beck and freshman Alyssa Smith and another jumper by Beck to pull within six, 51-45, with 9:39 remaining, but the Lady Griz would only score two points the rest of the game.

“We came off the deck a few times in the second half,” Selvig said. “We created some turnovers and made some runs, but we just couldn’t get any offense going.

“The real killer was that we got dominated on the boards. We could not get a rebound, and a lot of their baskets came on second-chance shots. They were just bigger and stronger tonight.”

Beck led Montana with 13 points in 37 minutes in her final collegiate game.

Junior Sarah Ena added 10 points.

Jones, who came off the bench to score 19 points in PSU’s win at Missoula last month, led the Vikings once again with 13 points. She also added four rebounds, four assists and four steals.

Kelli Valentine scored 12 points on 6-of-8 shooting, and Claire Faucher had 11 points, nine assists, four rebounds and four steals.