Lady Griz head to Grand Forks

The Montana women's basketball team, coming off a home win on Sunday over Washington, will open a two-game road trip when it plays at North Dakota on Thursday night in Grand Forks.

The Lady Griz (2-2) and Fighting Hawks (2-1), no strangers to one another, will tip off at 6 p.m. (MT) inside UND's Betty Engelstad Sioux Center.

The teams were Big Sky Conference opponents for six seasons, from 2012-13 to 2017-18, and have played three more times since North Dakota landed in the Summit League.

Montana has won five straight games against North Dakota and is 12-8 against the Fighting Hawks all-time.

Montana will then continue on to Minneapolis and face a second potentially unbeaten Big Ten team in eight days, playing at Minnesota (5-0) at 1 p.m. (MT) on Sunday.

The Lady Griz handed then 4-0 Washington its first loss of the season on Sunday, knocking off the Huskies 82-68 in Missoula, leading the game for more than 38 minutes.

Coverage: Thursday's game can be watched on the Summit League Network and heard on KGRZ 1450 AM/92.7 FM or KGRZMissoula.com, with Ace Sauerwein calling the action.

At a glance (Montana): It was a week of lows and highs for the Lady Griz, who lost 65-55 at home to Cal Poly on Thursday before bouncing back with an 82-68 home win over Washington on Sunday.

In Thursday's loss to the Mustangs, Montana never held a lead as Cal Poly went 9 for 19 from the 3-point line to pick up its first Division I win of the season.

The Lady Griz shot 36.0 percent, went 5 for 25 from the arc and turned the ball over 18 times. Montana trailed 39-25 at the half and by 10 or more for the game's final 35 minutes.

It was Cal Poly's first win over Montana in five tries.

A different Lady Griz team came to play on Sunday, with Montana showing off its best self in a 14-point victory over a team that had won its first four games by an average of 35 points.

The Lady Griz shot 56.9 percent against the Huskies, Montana's second-best shooting game under fourth-year coach Brian Holsinger, and led the final 36:33.

Montana led 22-10 after the first quarter, going 10 for 18, and built a 19-point lead in the second quarter, 35-16.

Washington closed to within a point, 44-43, midway through the third quarter before a strong finish to the period pushed Montana's lead to 58-49.

The Lady Griz scored the opening six points of the fourth quarter and held a lead of at least 11 points the final nine minutes of the game.

Mack Konig scored 24 points, two off her career high, going 11 for 18. MJ Bruno added 11, her most points since January, and Dani Bartsch added 10 rebounds, her 30th career game with 10 or more.

The win was Montana's first over Washington since 1987, its first against the Big Ten since defeating Illinois in Cancun early in the 2008-09 season and its first over a power-conference opponent since 2014.

Konig and Bruno were the only Lady Griz in double figures, though all 10 players who got minutes scored. Montana out-rebounded Washington 42-33.

Alex Pirog took four shots and made four shots to score nine points. The junior is now 17 for 21 (.810) on the season and averaging 10.3 points

Konig dished out four assists, giving her 26 through four games. She ranks 16th nationally at 6.5 assists per game.

In her first career start, sophomore Adria Lincoln scored seven points, all seven coming on 3-of-3 shooting in Sunday's key first quarter.

Montana has now shot better than 48 percent in three of its four games this season. Its season percentage of .481 ranks 32nd nationally, two spots behind USC, one behind UCLA.

After allowing its first three opponents this season go 28 for 58 (.483) from the 3-point line, Montana held Washington to 2-of-14 shooting. The Huskies entered the game 43 for 100 from the arc.

At a glance (North Dakota): The Fighting Hawks, who had their season opener at Youngstown State canceled due to a power outage, will enter Thursday's game with a record of 2-1.

North Dakota defeated Eastern Illinois 66-63 at home and Dickinson State 77-58 in a neutral-site match-up to move to 2-0 on the season before losing 66-63 at home to Green Bay on Sunday.

The Fighting Hawks built a 13-point second-quarter lead against the Phoenix but saw that advantage vanish by halftime. UND led 29-28 at the break.

A back-and-forth fourth quarter had Green Bay taking the lead for good on a 3-pointer with 63 seconds left.

Through three games, North Dakota is averaging more than 18 turnovers per game but has gone 59 for 78 from the free throw line, its opponents 27 for 41.

Sophomore forward Kiera Pemberton leads North Dakota in scoring (18.0/g) on 53.1 percent shooting and rebounding (8.7/g). She has gotten to the line 22 times in three games.

Junior guard Mikayla Aumer (14.7/g) and freshman guard Jocelyn Schiller (12.0/g), who scored 2,344 points at Grand Forks' Red River High, also are averaging in double figures.

North Dakota went 9-21 a year ago, finishing sixth in the Summit League at 5-11. It was a 10-win drop-off from the year before, when UND went 19-13 and finished third in the Summit at 11-7.

Last year's team was led by Kacie Borowicz, who averaged 21.0 points, ranking 15th nationally. She scored 2,034 points in her five-year career, the third-highest total in program history.

North Dakota was picked seventh out of nine teams in this year's Summit League preseason poll, finishing ahead of Kansas City and Omaha.

First and third in the poll were South Dakota State and North Dakota State, the two opponents Montana will face next month in the Big Sky Conference-Summit League Challenge.

North Dakota is led by fifth-year coach Mallory Bernhard, who has a record at UND of 47-69.

Series history: Montana leads the all-time series with North Dakota 12-8 and has won five straight over the Fighting Hawks.

Montana coach Brian Holsinger is 2-0 against North Dakota. UND coach Mallory Bernhard is 0-3 against Montana as the program's head coach. She previously was an assistant coach at UND for seven years.

The Lady Griz won six of the teams' first eight match-ups in a series that dates back to 1977. The Fighting Hawks won six of seven against Montana during a stretch when the teams were both in the Big Sky.

Montana swept the season series in 2017-18, UND's final year in the Big Sky, and has gone 3-0 against North Dakota since then in non-league match-ups, including a 72-51 win in Grand Forks in 2021-22.

Montana has gone just 3-5 against North Dakota in Grand Forks over the years but has won the teams' last two match-ups on UND's home court.

Montana's 72-51 win in Grand Forks in 2021-22 was the team's third game under now fourth-year coach Brian Holsinger, the team's first road game and road win under Holsinger.

The teams' most recent meeting was an 82-77 win for Montana in Missoula early in the 2022-23 season.

Kacie Borowicz scored 35 points, the 10th-highest total ever scored against the Lady Griz, and North Dakota built a 14-point second-quarter lead.

Montana outscored North Dakota 23-2 over the second and third quarters to build a lead the Lady Griz would hold the rest of the way.

Sammy Fatkin scored 21 points for Montana, Gina Marxen added 18.

Around the Big Sky Conference:

* Montana State, playing its first four games of the season at home, leads the Big Sky at 4-0. The Bobcats will put that record to the test on Sunday at Utah, which lost its coach this week to the WNBA.

* Sacramento State (4-1) and Northern Arizona (3-1) have both lost only one game. NAU hosts 5-0 Arizona on Wednesday night in Flagstaff.

* Eastern Washington, which lost all five starters off last year's Big Sky championship team, is 1-3. The Eagles lost 83-59 at Washington last week after being down just four, 38-34, at the half.

Upcoming: Montana will play at Minnesota on Sunday at 1 p.m. (MT). The Gophers are 5-0, with a home game against Eastern Illinois on Wednesday night.

Minnesota went 2-0 at the Briann January Classic in Tempe, Ariz., over the weekend, including a 73-38 victory over Oregon State.

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Players Mentioned

Dani Bartsch

MJ Bruno

Mack Konig

Adria Lincoln

Gina Marxen

Alex Pirog

University of Montana Athletics