Lady Griz drop heartbreaker in title game

Wednesday, March 12

Boise, Idaho

3 PM

Montana

14-18

(1) Montana State

30-3

Montana

Montana St.

Photo by: Ryan Brennecke/ University of Mo

3/12/2025 8:39:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score Photo Gallery

By: Montana Sports Information

It was bound to break hearts one way or the other, the stakes what they were, the rivalry what it is.

On one side of the divide, jubilation after Marah Dykstra rebounded her own miss and laid in the game-winning put-back at the buzzer to give Montana State a 58-57 victory over Montana on Wednesday in the title game of the Big Sky Conference Championship at Idaho Central Arena in Boise.

On the other side of the divide, sorrow for a team that managed to lose a coach in the middle of the season, weather the storms that came with it, then still put together a week for the ages, knocking off the No. 3 seed on Monday, the No. 2 seed on Tuesday and giving the No. 1 seed on Wednesday all it could handle.

The team that simply refused to give in this week no matter the situation fell behind by 10 in the third quarter against the Bobcats (30-3) but fought back to take a pair of leads in the fourth quarter, the last one, 57-56, coming when Dani Bartsch hit a 3-pointer from the top of the key with seven seconds left.

Through 19 minutes and 59 seconds of the second half, Montana, as it had been doing all week, suffocated Montana State, holding the Bobcats, who led 35-27 at the half, to a mere 21 points on 8-of-27 (.296) shooting.

But after Dykstra missed on her first attempt at a game-winner, everyone stopped except for the first-team All-Big Sky Conference player, who grabbed her own miss and softly set it back in just before the buzzer, the delicate finish doubling as a crushing dagger.

"Super disappointed for our kids with what they've been through and what they've done this week. If this hasn't been my favorite week of coaching, it's way up there," said interim head coach Nate Harris.

"My heart's broken for our kids as I've watched them come together and fight and stick together. This one stings."

No one knew what to make of the championship-game match-up, one team that was peaking, playing loose and with a confidence it hadn't shown all season, the other team coming in with 29 wins, only one loss on its record since early December and two heavily one-sided victories already this week in Boise.

What no one would have predicted was Montana, matching Montana State's intensity and aggressiveness, step one in playing with this Bobcat team, racing out to a 15-3 lead six minutes into the game.

The rest of the first half, however, mostly belonged to Montana State, which pulled within 18-14 at the end of the first quarter, then rode the scoring of Big Sky MVP Esmeralda Morales to a 35-27 halftime lead.

Morales had 15 points in the second quarter on 6-of-7 shooting and had 17 at the half.

It didn't look good, but neither did it look good on Monday before Montana used a big second half to blitz No. 3 Idaho. It didn't look good, either, on Tuesday, when the Lady Griz fell behind No. 2 Northern Arizona by 13 points in the third quarter.

Both games were won on the defensive end, Montana holding the Vandals and Lumberjacks to a combined 30 percent shooting in the second half of those quarterfinal and semifinal games.

But these were the Bobcats, holder of a No. 52 NET ranking, winner of two earlier games in Boise by a combined 65 points, and Morales wasn't going anywhere.

When the second-half lead reached 10, 40-30, on a Morales 3-pointer with 7:11 left in the third quarter, giving her 20 points on the afternoon, the game hung in the balance.

Either Montana State was going to pull away and cruise to the expected victory or Montana was going to do that thing the Lady Griz had been doing all week, digging in and refusing to go away quietly.

It was the latter. And it was beautiful and thrilling and evocative of so many Montana championship teams over the decades, who believed in themselves and rode that to win after win after win. And it was almost enough to get tournament title No. 22.

With Montana down 10, Avery Waddington hit back-to-back baskets to make it a six-point game, then Bartsch hit a 3-pointer, making it 40-37.

A game that had been rivalry- and championship-tense from the opening tip suddenly got even more so.

After Montana State went up four early in the fourth quarter, Mack Konig, who had a Big Sky tournament few Lady Griz have ever had, scored on two straight possessions to tie the game, and when Tyler McCliment-Call hit a 3-pointer with 6:53 to go, Montana had its first lead since early in the second quarter, 50-49.

Only seven baskets would be made after McCliment-Call's 3-pointer, each one feeling momentous, each one feeling like it might be The One that delivered a championship.

Dykstra scored. Waddington answered. Morales scored, Dykstra did, too, and Montana State led by four with two minutes left.

After Montana forced two Bobcat turnovers and a missed shot, Waddington finished a strong take to the basket with 30 seconds left to make it 56-54.

The next sequence of events would have gone down in Lady Griz lore had they led to a win. After Montana State inbounded the ball and got it to Morales, MJ Bruno, who had pestered Morales all afternoon, came from behind and stole the ball.

After Montana rushed to the other end of the court, Konig got into the paint with the clock under 10, pivoted and found an open Bartsch at the top of the key. Her shot was the thing of legend. Montana led with seven seconds left, 57-56.

Montana State, with enough time to do some things and the ball in the front-court, had options, the obvious one to get the ball into the hands of Morales and let her create. But she had already turned the ball over three times in the fourth quarter.

Montana State coach Tricia Binford instead opted for Dykstra, whose first attempt at the game-winner missed. Her second did not, the ball leaving her fingers and going through the rim in the game's final second.

"It's pure joy and straight heartbreak," said Bartsch of the game's final 10 seconds. "Credit to (Dykstra) for playing to the buzzer. It's a saying for a reason. Unfortunately, we all stopped when she missed that first shot. A great player made a great play."

It took one of the best mid-major teams in the country a full 40 minutes, all 2,400 seconds of the game, to finally finish off a team that arrived in Boise as the No. 6 seed, a team no one would have been surprised was sent packing on Monday. But they believed.

"No one thought we were going to win on Monday and certainly no one thought we were going to win yesterday," said Bartsch. "To lose on a buzzer-beater, really proud of our resolve as a team and the fight that we had."

Morales finished with 25 points, Dykstra with 10. Waddington had 15 points and eight rebounds, Konig 13 points and eight assists, giving her 62 points and 19 assists for the tournament.

"What a great college basketball game," said Harris, who was then asked about the sequence of events that decided the game over the final minutes. "It was a series of great plays by really, really good players who wanted to win badly.

"I want to give a lot of credit to Montana State. They are a great team and will be great representative of the Big Sky Conference (in the NCAA tournament). Thirty wins isn't a joke."

Montana State turned Montana over 11 times in the first half, but the Lady Griz got better as the game went on, turning it over just three times in the fourth quarter.

When Montana did operate in the half-court, the Lady Griz shot 46.9 percent. "They turned us over in the full court but I felt when we got into the half-court, we felt really good we were going to get a really good, high-quality look," said Harris.

Bartsch and McCliment-Call both scored nine points, with Bruno having a signature game, 11 points, three 3-pointers and some defense on Morales in the second half that almost neutralized the MVP, the MSU point guard totaling more turnovers in the fourth quarter (3) than points (2).

"She's a really good player. Our whole goal was not letting her have the ball," said Bruno. "I take pride in my defense and take pride in making her take hard shots.

"I was going to do everything I could for my team to make sure she couldn't score the types of shots she likes to score. That was my mindset. I was going to do it until the clock ran out."

And when it did, when the buzzer sounded as the game-winning shot slid through the net, hearts had to break one way or the other.