Lady Griz overcome slow start, win third straight

Saturday, January 24

Pocatello, Idaho

2 PM

Montana

6-13, 3-5BSC

Idaho State

12-7, 5-3BSC

OT 1

Montana

Idaho St.

1/24/2026 6:36:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score

By: Montana Sports Information

It couldn't have started much worse and it couldn't have ended much better.

Behind 10-0 less than four minutes into the game and 20-9 after the first quarter against the team that smoked Montana State by 19 points on Thursday night, handing the Bobcats their first Big Sky loss, the Montana women's basketball team never flinched.

The Lady Griz (6-13, 3-5 BSC) caught fire from the 3-point line in the second quarter, led by seven at the half and held on for a 70-67 overtime win over Idaho State (12-7, 5-3 BSC) on Saturday afternoon at Reed Gym in Pocatello.

The win was Montana's third straight, all coming within a week of last Saturday's 82-44 loss at Montana State that left the Lady Griz winless in league. Now Montana is 3-5 and, with Mack Konig possibly returning in the weeks ahead, looking mighty dangerous.

"This is a huge win for our program. I'm just so dang proud of them. To be where we were at, sitting 0-5 in league, you play your rival on the road and it doesn't go well, for them to regroup the way they have and come in here and get a win? It's a big deal," said coach Nate Harris.

"They came together and figured it out. Just kept swinging, just kept chopping. Now we've won three in a row."

The first-quarter numbers could best be ignored, but with the way the Lady Griz responded, they provide the right starting point and give the turnaround some perspective. Eight turnovers in the opening 10 minutes, 3-of-12 shooting. Montana was dead in the water.

What followed was a 31-point onslaught in the second quarter, the team's most points in a period against a Division I opponent since the 2023-24 season. Montana took 16 shots in the second quarter, made 12. The Lady Griz took nine of those shots from the 3-point line, made seven.

Rae Ehrman, who went 4 for 4 from the 3-point line at Weber State on Thursday in Montana's 51-50 win, went 3 for 3 from the arc in the second quarter, Draya Wacker went 2 for 3, those two outscoring the Bengals in the period 19-13.

"Draya and Rae really buoyed us in that quarter," said Harris. "They made a couple and all of a sudden everyone is feeling good. We were way more active and our tempo improved. All of a sudden that rim looks really big and you're able to snowball on them a little bit and pull away."

It was the version of Ehrman that Harris always knew was there, the freshman twice hitting four 3-pointers early in the season and also going 1 for 14 from the arc in the four games before this week's road trip.

After going 4 for 4 on Thursday, Ehrman hit her first four 3-pointers on Saturday, on her way to a season-high 21 points.

"Rae was one of the best high school shooters in the country. She's had some freshman moments when it hasn't been as clean but I'm never going to tell her not to shoot it," said Harris. "If I tell her not to shoot it when it's not going well, we don't get today. We've got to ride the wave a little bit."

Down 14 late in the first quarter, Montana led 40-33 at the break, with Ehrman scoring 16 first-half points, Wacker nine on her way to 15 for the game, which matched her career high, set all of five days ago, in Montana's home win over Northern Arizona, the start of the winning streak.

"Draya has really come on. She had a tremendous effort today," said Harris. "You saw some of that small-school Montana come out in her. There were a couple heat checks in there, a little bit of swag."

The Lady Griz led by eight, 52-44, after three quarters, then overcame 3-for-10 shooting in the fourth quarter, scoring just enough to keep the Bengals from rallying for the victory in regulation, neither team making a basket over the last two minutes.

"If you can defend yourself through the ebbs and flows, you're going to be fine," said Harris. "That's our biggest growth. We've started defending our way through those ebbs and flows. When your defense is good enough, you can ride the wave of the offensive end."

Montana held Idaho State to 33.3 percent shooting over the game's final 35 minutes, after the Bengals lit it up in the first quarter.

"We bogged them down. We made a team that can feel pretty good feel a little bit stagnant," said Harris, whose team is allowing 61.3 points per game in regulation during its winning streak.

It was only Montana's third win in its last nine visits to Reed Gym. "We're tougher than we give ourselves credit for. If you can come into Idaho State and win, if you can come in here and out-tough this team, you have some stuff to you."

Montana went 15 for 36 from the 3-point line for the game, the last two makes giving the Lady Griz a chance to win their third road game of the season.

With Idaho State rallying in the fourth quarter and seizing the momentum, pulling within one, 59-58, with three minutes to play, Macy Donarski, who had just missed a pair of free throws, buried a 3-pointer from the corner with 2:37 to go to extend Montana's lead back to four, 62-58.

It was huge at the time and even bigger as the Lady Griz failed to score the rest of regulation. Tasia Jordan hit a short jumper with 2:09 left to make it 62-60. Jordan then hit a pair of free throws with 1:10 left to even the score at 62-62, the game's first tie since midway through the second quarter.

The 97th game between Montana and Idaho State would be the teams' first match-up to go to overtime.

After an Idaho State 3-pointer gave the Bengals a 65-64 lead early in the extra period, Kennedy Gillette answered with a three from the top of the key less than 20 seconds later to give Montana a lead the Lady Griz would hold through the finish.

Idaho State went 1 for 7 in overtime, with a miss at the buzzer that could have tied it. That followed a wild sequence that had the ball go from Wacker to an ISU player back to Wacker to Waddington under the basket for a lay-up with 11 seconds left that made it 70-67.

"That was a tremendous women's college basketball game," said Harris. "I was happy to be a part of it. I'm proud of our group."

Montana's two leading scorers both did it off the bench, Ehrman finishing with 21, surpassing her previous season high by seven, and Wacker matching her career high with 15. The sharpshooters went 9 for 16 from the arc.

Waddington had 11 points, seven rebounds, five assists and four blocks, Gillette finished with 13 points and six rebounds as Harris went just seven deep for the third straight game.

The Lady Griz will close out the month of January next week with home games against Portland State (5-14, 1-6 BSC) and Sacramento State (10-10, 4-3 BSC).