Lumberjacks shoot their way past Lady Griz

Saturday, February 8

Missoula, Mont.

2 PM

Montana

10-13, 6-6BSC

Northern Arizona

19-6, 10-2BSC

Northern Ariz.

Montana

Photo by: Taylor Decker/University of Montana

2/8/2025 5:59:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score Photo Gallery

By: Montana Sports Information

Northern Arizona, the second-place team in the Big Sky Conference, shot its way to a 96-76 victory over Montana on Saturday afternoon at Dahlberg Arena in Missoula.

The Lumberjacks (19-6, 10-2 BSC) raced out to a 51-40 halftime lead, then broke the game open in the third quarter, putting up 32 points to take an 83-54 lead into the final period.

Northern Arizona scored 63 points across the second and third quarters on 24-of-33 shooting. NAU went 11 for 15 from the 3-point line over those two periods.

"We made some mistakes that allowed them to feel good, then they carried that over and felt good for most of the game," said acting head coach Nate Harris.

"They went out and made the plays. They played better than we did today. They deserve a ton of credit for being aggressive and getting the shots they wanted and making them."

The Lumberjacks went 17 for 34 from the 3-point line, the most makes ever recorded against the Lady Griz. Northern Arizona's 96 points were the most ever allowed by Montana at home.

"They played awesome. They are a great offensive team and we didn't do enough to slow them down," said Harris.

"They looked really good today. Some of it was stuff we did, some of it was the fact they just have some really talented basketball players who made some shots today."

Taylor Feldman led the way for Northern Arizona, scoring 21 points on 5-of-6 shooting from the arc. She went 8 for 10 overall and was one of six Lumberjacks in double figures.

Sophie Glancey added 18, Allie Cummins 15, Leia Beattie 12 and Nyah and Olivia Moran 11 each.

The end result overshadowed the fact that Montana, which opened the game with an 8-2 lead, played pretty well offensively, putting up 76 points on 48.4 percent shooting.

It was 30 more points than the Lady Griz (10-13, 6-6 BSC) scored in their loss to the Lumberjacks in Flagstaff last month and Montana's third-highest output through a dozen Big Sky games.

Tyler McCliment-Call scored 17 points, her fourth consecutive game with 17 or more, and Avery Waddington had a veteran line of 17 points, six rebounds and six assists while shooting 7 for 11.

Izabella Zingaro added 12 points, MJ Bruno 11 as Montana played without both Dani Bartsch and Aby Shubert.

The Lady Griz hit seven of their first 10 shots and built a 16-9 lead six minutes into the game.

That deficit seemed to awaken the Lumberjacks, who got 3-pointers from Nyah Moran, Cummins and Glancey late in the first quarter to give NAU a 20-18 lead after the opening 10 minutes.

Northern Arizona opened a 10-point lead midway through the second quarter and led by 11 at the break, despite Montana shooting 51.4 percent in the first half.

"If you had told me we would score 76, I would have thought we would have had a good shot," said Harris, whose team allowed 65 points to Northern Arizona in the teams' first match-up.

The Lumberjacks hit their first five shots of the second half, three of them coming from the arc, and NAU was off and running.

"Sometimes you're the hammer and sometimes you're the nail," said Harris. "Today we were the nail. To their credit, they buried shots.

"This only becomes terrible if we don't learn from the mistakes we made. We've got to get back to work and respond to this the right way."

Montana will play at Idaho State (8-14, 3-8 BSC) and Weber State (9-12, 6-5 BSC) next week.