FRANKFORT, Ky. (March 20, 2021) – With a combined 50 points in the opening quarter, the Northern Arizona Lumberjacks and Portland Pilots came out at a breakneck pace through the first 10 minutes of their semifinal in the 2021 Women's Basketball Invitational.
While NAU took an eight-point lead seven minutes into the contest, a rough second quarter left the Lumberjacks (14-14) trailing by 11 headed into halftime before falling 80-65 to the Pilots (14-12) on Saturday night in Frankfort, Ky. NAU will now face the Stetson Hatters for third place in the WBI at 2 p.m. on Sunday.
"Portland did a good job of keeping their pressure on for 40 minutes, and I felt like we missed some easy shots," said NAU head coach
Loree Payne. "We allowed their defense to speed us up, which we talked about not doing. We did not play our best game tonight and if we're going to win in the semis and win championships, we've got to be a little more consistent with our performance overall."
NAU and Portland traded shots through the opening five minutes of the game before the Lumberjacks put together the first run of more than four points for either side.
A three-point play by
Khiarica Rasheed, who produced a double-double for the second straight night, put the Lumberjacks ahead 14-12 on the sixth lead change of the game. Jumpers by
Regan Schenck and
JJ Nakai pushed the lead up to 18-12 before a rare scoreless stretch by both teams interrupted the run for nearly a minute and a half.
Jacey Bailey's layup at the 2:52 mark of the first capped off the 9-0 run, and put the Lumberjacks ahead by their largest margin of the night.
A trio of three-pointers by Maddie Muhlheim through the final stretch of the quarter sent the Pilots back in front, ending the scoring binge between the teams with a 26-24 Portland lead. The Lumberjacks hit 60 percent from the field in the first quarter, nearly matched by the Pilots' 57.9 percent.
Muhlheim's two threes in a 17-second stretch started a 15-0 run spanning the first and second quarters as NAU went scoreless for nearly five minutes of game time before
Nyah Moran snapped the skid with a layup.
Trailing 35-24 before Moran's basket, the Lumberjacks spent the rest of the night trying to climb back from a double-digit deficit.
"I thought we handled their pressure pretty well early on and then I felt like our defense took some hits," Payne said. "They scored 54 points in the paint. We can't give up that easy of buckets when we are working that hard offensively to break the press."
Five of NAU's 17 turnovers in the game came during its scoreless stretch in the first and second quarters while also missing six straight shots.
Another three-point play by Rasheed and a pair of free throws from
Miki'ala Maio helped cut the Pilots' lead back to eight, but a three-pointer from Muhlheim sent Portland to the break leading 42-31.
Finishing with 22 points thanks to a 6-of-11 day from behind the arc, Muhlheim led a quartet of double-digit scorers for the Pilots. Haylee Andrews added 18 points with Alex Fowler finishing with 17.
Rasheed's 19 points paced the Lumberjacks, adding 12 rebounds in a season-high 38 minutes on the court. Maio finished with 17 points while Bailey rounded out NAU's top scorers with 10 points, two blocks and four steals.
NAU connected on just 1-of-11 from three-point range despite hitting 50 percent from the field overall.
Set to conclude their season with Stetson (10-14), NAU is looking for its second consecutive season finishing above .500 after last year's 16-15 record. It would be the first back-to-back winning seasons since doing so in three straight between 2004-05 and 2006-07.
