RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Freshman guard Amy Patton continued her breakout debut weekend with her first career double-double scoring a game-high 29 points with 10 rebounds for Northern Arizona women's basketball in its 81-63 loss to UC Riverside on Sunday. Patton is averaging 22.5 points-per-game and 8.5 rebounds-per-game through her first two games at the collegiate level.

“I feel really good about our team,” said head coach Laurie Kelly. “We are just not able to put 40 minutes together right now. We have to get everyone on the same page. Some of it is definitely youth. These players have had only 40 minutes of basketball under their belt together and the teams that we played this weekend are atypical Big Sky teams.”

NAU (0-2) played right with UC Riverside (1-1) for the majority of the first 20 minutes in a half that totaled 10 lead changes. With just under five minutes to play in the first and the Lumberjacks down a point, the Highlanders went on a 13-4 run to stretch their lead to 10. The Lumberjacks would enter the half down 38-30.

NAU was down by as many as 20 points in the second half, but continued to fight back and cut the UC Riverside lead to 12 at the 10-minute mark. The Highlanders were able to withstand the NAU run and closed the game with an 18-point win.

Through two games, the Lumberjacks are averaging 65 points-per-game, a huge difference than the 43.5 points-per-game NAU averaged through two games a season ago.

“We shot the ball really well,” Kelly said. “We are scoring more points than we have scored in years. The problem is defensively we are giving up more. We had a lot of defensive breakdowns and that is something you clean up with experience. Getting stops when we need them has been our biggest hindrance.”

There were a lot of really good things tonight though. Amy (Patton) and Tyler (Stephens-Jenkins) had good numbers. Lauren (Hoisington) was good inside tonight. We really just need to get five kids in double figures and keep the opposing team to 65 points or below.”

Despite the 0-2 record, NAU women's basketball has already felt the type of impact Patton can bring offensively. The Tempe, Ariz., native scored 16 points in her first college game on Friday and nearly doubled that performance on 10-of-19 shooting while hitting six threes for 29 points on Sunday. She also pulled down 10 rebounds and picked up two assists and two steals as well.

“Amy has an opportunity to be one of the best players ever at NAU,” Kelly said. “From an offensive standpoint, she has the ability to shoot the ball from so many different places on the floor. We felt from the minute we signed her she would be an impact player right away. She is doing exactly what we thought she would do. You need kids who can put the ball in the basket and she definitely brings us that offensive threat.”

In addition to Patton's numbers, Stephens-Jenkins recorded 13 points and five rebounds while Hoisington added 12 points and five rebounds inside. As a team, the Lumberjacks shot 41.5 percent compared to UC Riverside who shot 46.6 percent.

NAU also cut its turnover margin from 15 on Friday to six on Sunday. The Lumberjacks totaled 35 turnovers against Pepperdine and chopped that number to 22 against UC Riverside.

“I am disappointed we are 0-2 but at the same time we are just trying to use these 13 [non-conference] games to get better every single time out and we are absolutely doing that," Kelly said. "We were a better team tonight than we were against Pepperdine and hopefully we will be better against UMKC.”

The Lumberjacks next game will be at UMKC on Thursday, November 19 at 6 p.m. in Kansas City, Mo. The women then travel to Muncie, Ind., for a game against Ball State on Saturday, November 21 at 2:30 p.m.