MISSOULA, Mont. (January 22, 2022) – Held without a field goal for nearly six minutes of the second half, the Northern Arizona Lumberjacks slipped into a late hole against the Montana Lady Griz Saturday afternoon in Missoula.
After leading by two early on in the third quarter, the Lumberjacks connected on just 2-of-19 shots from the field for a stretch of 10:54, spanning the third quarter and into the fourth. Unable to climb out of a nine-point deficit with 6:45 remaining in the game, the Lumberjacks (7-8, 4-3 Big Sky) fell 66-60 to the Lady Griz (12-4, 5-2).
"We played much better on the defensive end today than we did on Thursday. That was a vast improvement," said Lumberjacks head coach
Loree Payne. "It's tough when you just aren't knocking down shots. I think we got like 20 more attempts than them, but our shooting percentage was not great. We missed a lot of easy, easy buckets tonight."
Northern Arizona finished with 23 more field-goal attempts than Montana, thanks in part to a 15-7 turnover advantage, but shot just 30.3 percent from the field in Dahlberg Arena. The 76 shots from the field were the most for Northern Arizona this season, but the worst shooting percentage in a game since hitting just 23.5 percent against New Mexico in December 2018.
After playing Montana even on the boards in the first half, including a 10-3 difference on the offensive boards, Northern Arizona fell behind on the glass as its offense struggled. Finishing with 16 fourth-quarter rebounds, the Lady Griz essentially held the Lumberjacks off the boards late though Northern Arizona did finish with a season-high 18 on the offensive end.
Northern Arizona finished with just one offensive rebound in the final 10 minutes despite shooting 7-of-17 in the final quarter and finished even at 4-4 in second-chance points during the second half.
"We put together three really strong quarters of rebounding and then we had a little bit of slippage in the fourth quarter," Payne said. "That can't happen in a game of this magnitude. We have to make sure that we are really solid on the defensive end and rebounding in that fourth quarter."
Just as was the case on Thursday, the Lumberjacks' fell well behind at the free-throw line. The Lady Griz finished 22-of-28 from the line, beating the Lumberjacks' 7-of-9, more than accounting for the difference in the final score. Montana's final 10 points came from the free-throw line, the final six coming as Northern Arizona fouled to intentionally put the Lady Griz at the line.
While the Lumberjacks struggled from the field for much of the game, their advantage in attempts allowed them to hold a six-point lead early in the second quarter.
With
Regan Schenck hitting a jumper just seconds before the first-quarter horn, Northern Arizona entered the second with a 14-12 lead. Seven quick points by
Khiarica Rasheed in the third quarter pushed the advantage to 21-15 before a 7-0 run by Montana pushed the home team back in front.
Jumpers by
Nyah Moran put Northern Arizona back in front 23-22 and tied the game 25-25 after a Lady Griz three, but a pair of free throws for Nyah Morris-Nelson just before the break put Montana in front after six first-half lead changes.
A 6-2 stretch in the first 1:40 of the third quarter put the Lumberjacks back in front for the final time, and a three-pointer for Schenck with 6:04 left in the third tied the score for the final time.
However, Schenck's three and a layup for
Olivia Moran stood as the only field goals for more than 10 minutes of play. In the meantime, Montana's offense picked up in the third quarter as the Lady Griz shot 53.3 percent in the quarter.
Trailing by nine with 6:45 remaining, the largest deficit of the game, Northern Arizona could only cut it to four with 46 seconds left.
Rasheed led the Lumberjacks with 17 points and 11 rebounds, her first double-double of the season, while Schenck added 13 points, six rebounds and four assists.
Nina Radford added nine points, hitting a pair of threes in the game's final 20 seconds, while
Olivia Moran put in eight points.
The Lumberjacks conclude their road trip on Monday in Cheney, Wash. against the Eastern Washington Eagles (4-13, 2-6 Big Sky) with tipoff scheduled for 7 p.m. MT. The Eagles fell 62-54 on the road against the Northern Colorado Bears, a second straight loss after beating Weber State and Portland State a week ago.
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