Lady Griz knock off Lumberjacks, advance to title game

Tuesday, March 11

Boise, Idaho

2:30 PM

Montana

14-17

(2) Northern Arizona

26-7

Montana

Northern Ariz.

Photo by: Ryan Brennecke/ University of Mo

Lady Griz knock off Lumberjacks, advance to title game

3/11/2025 8:05:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score Photo Gallery

By: Montana Sports Information

Montana's magical March -- and march through the Big Sky Conference Championship -- just keeps getting better.

If Monday's win over No. 3 Idaho was unexpected, Tuesday's 71-67 victory over No. 2 Northern Arizona, a team that defeated the Lady Griz by 39 points in their two regular-season meetings, was improbable, not simply because of the opponent but because of the situation.

Montana trailed by 14 in the first half and 35-26 at the break before playing a remarkable second half on both ends of the floor.

Behind the play of point guard Mack Konig, who scored 17 points in the fourth quarter on perfect shooting, a career-high 29 for the game, the Lady Griz once again proved to be undeniable in Boise.

Montana, on a Dani Bartsch 3-pointer late in the third period, pulled within seven, 48-41, going into the fourth quarter, a 10-minute window of time that will forever belong to Konig.

With the Lady Griz still trailing by seven, 52-45, Konig hit a 3-pointer, then hit another 29 seconds later to make it a one-point game with seven minutes to go.

The game, with a trip to Wednesday's championship on the line, remained tense and tight the rest of the way, before Konig hit the shot of her life, a pull-up jumper from 12 feet out with 37 seconds left to break a tie and give Montana a 67-65 lead, one it would hold to the finish.

After taking out the No. 3 and No. 2 seeds, Montana will get a chance to face No. 1 seed Montana State on Wednesday at 3 p.m., the Lady Griz' first title game appearance since 2015.

"We had some tremendous individual performances. None of that matters," said interim head coach Nate Harris. "We matters is the way this group stuck together and a found a way against a really good team and earn their shot at a Big Sky Conference title."

Montana went 0-2 against Idaho during the regular season. Didn't matter on Monday. Montana went 0-2 against Northern Arizona during the regular season. Didn't matter on Tuesday. The Lady Griz went 0-2 against Montana State during the regular season.

"It feels a little bit surreal to be sitting here," added Harris. "Did we believe we could do it? Yes. To have the opportunity we have sitting in front of us is a blessing I will never forget with this group and what they've done down the stretch."

Montana was mostly stymied by Northern Arizona through the first 20 minutes, the Lady Griz scoring just 26 points in the first half on 34.4 percent shooting. That should have been a death knell against a team that went into the game averaging 80 points per game.

The Lumberjacks quite easily put 96 points on the Lady Griz just a few weeks ago when the teams met in Missoula, with point guard Taylor Feldman going off for 21 points on 8-of-10 shooting. She went 5 for 6 from the 3-point line that afternoon, giving her 45 points in the teams' two regular-season match-ups.

As it was in Monday's win over Idaho, the story of the game a day later was Montana's defense.

Nyah Moran exploded for 19 first-half points and Sophie Glancey added 10, but the Lumberjacks had a still-within-reach 35 points at the break, with Feldman, who averages more than 16 points, getting shut out.

It was all part of the plan. Defend Glancey one-on-one in the post without help and let her get hers and stay matched up with everyone else.

Glancey indeed got hers, with 29 points and 14 rebounds, and Moran finished with a season-high 27 points, but the rest of the team scored just 11, with Feldman getting held to a season-low one point, only the fifth time this season she did not score at least 10.

The greatness of Glancey is that she is mostly predictable in the post, going to her left shoulder nine moves out of 10, but she still has enough game to score even when a team defends against it.

"Our game plan was understanding how much they go to Sophie, how much she prefers one direction over the other and trying to take that away. You can't take it away on a kid that good. You just try to make it as difficult as possible. That allowed us to stay out on a lot of their other kids."

With Northern Arizona scrambling to find answers in the second half, the door opened for a Montana comeback.

"Super proud of our kids and their ability to stay the course on the defensive end," said Harris. "We just had to continue to get to the right stuff offensively and score enough points. I believed in what we were doing offensively. I just thought it needed time.

"Proud of our kids for staying the course and doing the things we needed to do to win this one."

Still, the hill that had to be climbed in the third quarter felt mostly insurmountable as Montana fell behind by 13, 41-28, on Feldman's lone point of the game, a free throw at the 6:48 mark.

The Lady Griz would creep within 10, then Northern Arizona would answer, the Lumberjacks building their final double-digit lead, 48-38, on two Glancey free throws late in the third quarter.

On Monday it was a Bartsch 3-pointer, actually three of them in the third quarter, that sparked Montana to the win. On Tuesday, her triple with less than 10 seconds left in the third period made it 48-41 going into the fourth and gave the Lady Griz a shot of life.

Northern Arizona entered the game 26-6 and holding a top-100 NET ranking, went 16-2 in league, its only losses to Montana State, yet it was Montana that looked poised as the game tightened up, NAU resorting to one thing time and again: get it to Glancey and hope for the best.

She scored 13 of NAU's 19 points in the final period but missed five shots, each one opening the door a little bit more for Montana. Her teammates went 1 for 5 over the final 10 minutes.

Tyler McCliment-Call began the fourth quarter with a finish in the lane, cutting the NAU lead to five, the closest the game had been since early in the second quarter.

After Glancey and Moran both scored to push it back to nine, Avery Waddington finished at the rim, followed by Konig's back-to-back threes that had Montana down just one and now believing and Northern Arizona, which went nearly five minutes without a made field goal, floundering.

Konig would make all four of her shots in the fourth quarter and go seven for seven from the line. If her two threes gave the Lady Griz a chance, her ice-cold pull-up jumper with 37 seconds left, over Glancey after Northern Arizona had switched a ball screen, won it.

"It's something that has recently developed in my game," she said. "I felt like it was the right time to bring that up."

Glancey missed on her reliable hook shot with 18 seconds left, then missed a short jumper with 13 seconds to go. A scramble for the rebound gave the ball to Montana and Waddington calmly hit two free throws with 11 seconds left to push the lead to four.

Konig made two free throws with six seconds to go to make it 71-67 and ice it. Montana went 13 for 15 from the line in the final period.

After struggling to score in the first half, the Lady Griz put up 45 points in the second on 14-of-29 (.483) shooting, good enough to advance and live to compete one more day.

"It's what you play the whole season for," said Bartsch. "To be playing our best this week? Nothing more you could ask for."

Konig added five assists to her 29 points, McCliment-Call finished with 16 points, Waddington had her third double-double of the season with 12 points and 11 rebounds and Bartsch added nine points and enough solid one-on-one defense on Glancey to take her just a bit off her usual game.

Montana's fifth starter, MJ Bruno? She went scoreless, but her effort was reflected on the other team's side of the stat sheet, as Feldman ended the day with a single point mostly by Bruno's doing. Feldman took eight shots and missed them all.

"MJ did a tremendous job of picking her up full court and turning her, making her work and making things as difficult as possible," said Harris. "Her commitment to what we were trying to do to slow Feldman down was big time."

All Montana has to do now is overcome a Montana State team that has lost just once since early December and has been destroying everything in its path in Boise, routing Northern Colorado 92-60 on Sunday, Idaho State by a score of 75-42 on Tuesday.

The Lady Griz gave the Bobcats all they could handle when the teams met in January in Missoula, falling 67-66. The rematch in Bozeman was no contest, Montana State winning 98-66 after building a 40-point second-half lead.

But it's March and it's been a magical one for Montana.

"We battled at home but then they got after us really good in Bozeman," Harris said. "One of the best mid-major teams in the country, a team that has an unbelievably strong identity and they've shown that here.

"Is it going to be a gigantic challenge? 100 percent. But do I believe in our group? Absolutely."