Morales leads Montana to eighth straight win
1/17/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
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Senior Mandy Morales scored 18 points to lead Montana to an 82-54 victory over Weber State at Dahlberg Arena Saturday night. The win was the Lady Griz??? eighth straight and their 13th win in their last 14 games. Montana improved to 16-3 and remained perfect in Big Sky play at 5-0.
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Weber State dropped its seventh straight game to fall to 5-12. The Wildcats remained winless in league at 0-5.
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Morales hit 4-of-6 first-half shots and scored 12 points to spark the Lady Griz to another big halftime lead, 41-26. Through five conference games, Montana has averaged better than a 13-point lead by the half.
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The Wildcats were within one, 17-16, midway through the first half, but a 3-pointer by senior Sonya Rogers at the 10:27 mark started a 7-0 run that put the Lady Griz up eight, 24-16.
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Montana slowly extended the first-half lead and took its largest lead of the half when Morales connected on a 3-pointer from the top of the key with six seconds to play.
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The Lady Griz shot 48.4 percent in the first half and forced 13 Weber State turnovers.
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Montana opened the second half on a 24-8 run to increase its margin to 31 points, 65-34, as the Wildcats were going 4-for-21 (.190) over the opening 13 minutes of the second half.
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All 12 Montana players saw at least seven minutes of action and all 12 scored.
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Rogers was the only other double-figure scorer, hitting three 3-pointers to finish with 14 points.
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The Lady Griz bench combined to shoot 58.3 percent and score 33 points.
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Junior Shaunte Nance-Johnson finished with five points and five rebounds and dished out a game-high seven assists. Redshirt freshman Misty Atkinson hit four of five shots to score eight points. Senior Tamara Guardipee went 3-for-4 from the field to score six points and grab four boards.
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The Lady Griz shot 49.2 percent from the field and finished with a 45-38 rebounding advantage.
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Montana is shooting 51.0 percent through five Big Sky games while limiting its opponents to 35.3 percent.
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Ali Thorderson was Weber State???s only double-figure scorer. She finished with a game-high 19 points, hitting five 3-pointers. Thorderson took 17 of Weber State???s 33 3-point attempts.
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After shooting 38.5 percent in the first half, the Wildcats dropped off to 21.1 percent in the second half to finish at 28.1 percent for the game.
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Weber was the sixth opponent Montana has held under 30 percent shooting this season.
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WSU???s starting five shot 22.7 percent. Weber???s starting backcourt of Tonya Schnibbe and Caitlin Anderson were hounded into a 2-for-18 (.111) shooting performance.
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Montana plays just a single game next week, facing Northern Colorado (8-9, 2-2 BSC) in Greeley, Colo., next Saturday at 2 p.m. The Bears lost at Portland State (12-6, 5-0 BSC) Saturday afternoon, 92-71.
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In Saturday???s other Big Sky Conference game, Montana State (8-9, 2-3 BSC) downed Idaho State (5-13, 2-3 BSC) in Bozeman, Mont., 71-52.
