FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. – The Northern Arizona women's basketball team finished well, but another slow start was their demise in a 78-56 loss to Montana State in the Walkup Skydome Thursday evening. The Lumberjacks, playing without two starters due to injury, outscored the Bobcats by seven in the second half, but a 15-point first quarter deficit was too much to overcome.
The loss was NAU's fifth straight with the Lumberjacks' record falling to 4-15 and 1-7 in conference.
"Having Kaleigh (Paplow) and Olivia (Lucero) out, we knew it was going to be a challenge," said head coach
Loree Payne. "We're really young and we don't have a lot of depth and that showed tonight especially in the first half. We won the second half, 40-33, but our confidence coming into the game was a little down. I'm super proud of them in the second half though; we only had four turnovers in the second half."
Starting three freshmen due to redshirt senior
Olivia Lucero and junior
Kaleigh Paplow missing the game with injuries, the Lumberjacks scored just five points in the opening period. Meanwhile, the Bobcats shot 46.7 percent from the field in the first 10 minutes to snag a 20-5 lead after the first quarter.
The Montana State lead stood at 45-16 at the half with NAU making just 6-of-29 field goals in the first half. Coupled with 14 turnovers and seven Montana State three-pointers, NAU faced its largest halftime deficit of the season.
The second half turned around for the Lumberjacks though, in particular the fourth quarter. Trailing by as much as 36 in the final period, NAU went on a massive 16-0 run over the course of nearly four minutes. On the other end, Montana State went nearly six minutes without a field goal as the fourth quarter was dominated by NAU. The Lumberjacks shot 50 percent, held the Bobcats to just three field goals and outrebounded them by seven in the last 10 minutes of the game.
Redshirt senior
Kenna McDavis scored 10 of her team-high 21 points while freshman
Khiarica Rasheed pulled down six of her game-high 11 rebounds in the fourth. For McDavis, it was her fifth 20-point game of the season. Rasheed tallied her second career double-digit game on the glass, coming up two shy of her best.
"We wanted to have some pride and Kenna started hitting some shots," Payne said. "We're a momentum team, especially offensive, so when we're hitting shots it sparks some things for us. We were getting some stops on defense. But we dug ourselves too big of a hole in the first quarter. In the first quarter, we were down 15 and we wound up losing by 22."
After halftime, NAU outrebounded Montana State by three and only turned the ball over four times. The Lumberjacks' defense also limited the Bobcats to a 27.8 field goal percentage with 10 field goals made – a number that was matched by Montana State in the second quarter alone.
McDavis also totaled seven rebounds and four blocks while playing all 40 minutes in the absence of Lucero and Paplow. Freshman
Lauren Orndoff played a season-high 38 minutes and contributed seven points and eight rebounds.
Rasheed just missed a double-double with nine points to go with her double-digit rebounding tally with an impressive 7-of-8 performance at the charity stripe. Off the bench, redshirt freshman
Brianna Lehew also played a career-high 26 minutes and recorded eight points and six boards.
Montana State shot just 36 percent for the game, but connected on 11 three-pointers compared to just four by NAU – all coming from McDavis. The Lumberjacks shot 30.2 percent for the game.
NAU welcomes Montana to the Skydome on Saturday at 5 p.m. The Lady Griz, coming off a 74-65 victory at Southern Utah on Thursday, is momentarily in sole possession of first place in the Big Sky by a half game with a 6-2 conference record.
