FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (November 17, 2018) – The Northern Arizona women's basketball team scored easily, but so did California Baptist for the majority of Saturday night's contest in the Rolle Activity Center. Fortunately, NAU's field goal percentage (.493) was slightly better than California Baptist's (.474), and the Lumberjacks sprinted to the finish in a 91-88 victory.
"I'm super proud of our team with their ability to close out another game at the end, which shows a lot of maturity," said head coach
Loree Payne. "Defensively, it was a struggle tonight. California Baptist is a solid team who shoots a lot of threes so we keyed on taking away those, but our interior defense struggled a little because of that."
NAU had five players score in double-figures – fitting for the up-and-down pace of the game – for the second time this season. Senior
Kaleigh Paplow led NAU with 22 points and redshirt sophomore
Caitlin Malvar registered her first double-double as a 'Jack with 16 points and a team-best 11 rebounds.
The Lumberjacks also had a sizeable advantage at the free throw line where they shot 18-for-24 compared to just 6-of-7 for the Lancers. Paplow matched California Baptist's team total by herself with a 6-for-7 performance at the charity stripe in addition to converting 8-of-17 from the field.
NAU turned around the game with a 14-3 run over three minutes midway through the third quarter. California Baptist led at the half, 42-41, and maintained that advantage, 49-48, before NAU's game-changing run. Five different Lumberjacks scored during the run that gave them their largest lead of the game, 62-52, with 4:23 left in the period.
However, despite at one point making seven straight field goals, the Lumberjacks were unable to put away the pesky Lancers with the visitors closing the deficit to four, 70-66, by the end of the quarter.
Malvar drilled a three – one of her game-high four – with just under three minutes left in the game to extend the NAU advantage back out to 91-82, but California Baptist had one final run in them. The Lancers got within three, 91-88, following a transition layup with 1:42 remaining. However, neither team would score the rest of the way.
California Baptist had one final chance at sending the game into overtime, but redshirt sophomore
Jacey Bailey blocked the Lancers' final three-point attempt as time expired.
"We could've pulled away at certain points, but we let them get back into the game with transition threes," Malvar said. "We have to tighten up our defense, but our team had swag out there. Even when they were going on runs, we never felt like we were going to lose tonight. That speaks volumes of our culture change from last year."
Even with the Lancers holding a 56-38 advantage in points the paint, the Lumberjacks managed to get stops when they needed to. Sophomore
Lauren Orndoff led NAU's defensive effort with career-highs of three blocks and four steals.
After California Baptist led 21-19 at the end of the first quarter, NAU went on its first big run to open the second. A 12-2 run shifted the game in the Lumberjacks' favor at 31-23 four minutes into the period, only for the Lancers to immediately tie the game with an 8-0 run.
Despite 12 first points by Paplow and a .454 team field goal percentage, NAU still went into the intermission down one largely due to six three-pointers by California Baptist. The Lumberjacks would not trail for the final 17 minutes of the game, although the Lancers never faded, and held on for their first 3-1 start in 13 years.
Behind Paplow's 22 and Malvar's 16, sophomore
Khiarica Rasheed (15), freshman
Regan Schenck (12) and Orndoff (11) all posted double-digit scoring efforts. Bailey just missed with nine and junior
Peyton Carroll scored six of the bench.
NAU will spend Thanksgiving weekend in Los Angeles where the Lumberjacks will compete in the four-team LMU Thanksgiving Classic. NAU will face host Loyola Marymount next Friday, Nov. 23 at 4 p.m. MST. Robert Morris and SMU will meet in the tournament's other game that day.
