Lady Griz win, advance to quarterfinals

Saturday, March 7

Boise, Idaho

2:30 PM

Montana

9-21

(7) Northern Arizona

10-22

Montana

Northern Ariz.

Photo by: Ryan Brennecke / University of Montana

3/7/2026 6:35:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score Photo Gallery

By: Montana Sports Information

It was an all-available-hands-on-deck kind of day for the Montana women's basketball team, and coach Nate Harris's players delivered a win on Saturday in the first round at the Big Sky Conference Championship in Boise that he'll remember for the rest of his career.

With Avery Waddington, who leads the Lady Griz in scoring, rebounding, assists, steals and blocks, sidelined with sickness, and with Jocelyn Land limited by the same ailment, the rest of Harris's players picked up the slack and pulled out a gritty 61-60 victory over Northern Arizona.

Trailing at the half against the No. 7 Lumberjacks and by eight in the third quarter, No. 8 Montana hit three huge 3-pointers in the fourth quarter to take the lead and held off a late NAU rally that had Big Sky Freshman of the Year Naomi White taking a potential game-winning shot in the closing seconds.

Her shot was off the mark and the Lady Griz (9-21), after they exhaled, were able to celebrate a win on the floor of Idaho Central Arena for the third straight postseason.

"I told them after the game, I've done this for two decades now and I don't know if I've ever been prouder of a group for saying, you know what? We're going to find a way," said Harris.

"We're going to fight, we're going to scratch, we're going to claw and we're going to have one more point because we want to stick around. Proud of our kids for finding a way to have one more point. You'd love to have more but you just have to have one."

Montana will be around for the quarterfinals for the fifth straight year, with a match-up against No. 2 Montana State set for Sunday at 2:30 p.m.

Not surprisingly, it was senior Mack Konig, who was so special in three games last March in Boise, who led Montana to the victory, with plenty of help from her (available) friends.

Konig finished with 17 points on just nine shots, going 3 for 3 from the 3-point line, while adding five assists in more than 33 minutes of game action.

Kennedy Gillette finished with 15 points and nine rebounds, and freshman Rae Ehrman came off the bench to add 16 points, hitting three 3-pointers of her own.

It was the second-highest scoring game of the season for both players, at just the right time.

"I'm just really proud of them," said Konig. "For them to come out and kind of leave everything behind and work really hard was beautiful to see and should inspire a lot of confidence in the rest of the team."

Both teams hovered around the 30-percent mark in the first half, with Northern Arizona leading 29-27 at the break, with White scoring 13 points for Northern Arizona, Konig 10 for Montana.

After White put the Lumberjacks ahead 38-36 midway through the third quarter, Northern Arizona applied full-court pressure and it led to three Montana turnovers in less than a minute.

It was part of a 9-0 run that put the Lumberjacks up eight, 44-36, and had Montana on the ropes.

With Land heading to the locker room in the third quarter, done for the day, Ehrman would score eight critical points in the period to keep Montana within striking distance, then she added five in the fourth when the Lady Griz did indeed come off the ropes and punch back.

"Rae was tremendous for us. She did the things we needed her to do. We need her to take open threes and play off her shot-fake, then she needs to be right and bring as much energy as she can defensively," said Harris, who improved to 3-1 in Boise.

"I thought she did those things today in spades. We needed her. Really proud of Rae and her ability to step up when we needed her the most."

With Northern Arizona leading 48-44 and the final seconds of the third quarter winding down, Montana took a 3-pointer that missed everything, but Gillette was in the right place at the right time for the offensive rebound.

Her put-back with three seconds left made it a two-point game going to the fourth and seemed to give her team a shot of energy, now in a one-possession game with 10 minutes left. Anybody's game, there for the taking.

"That's the play I'll remember most from this game," said Harris. "We're struggling to score and Kennedy gets physical. It was a huge, huge play for us."

Appropriately, Gillette tied the game at 48-48 early in the fourth quarter, then Ehrman hit a 3-pointer with 7:55 left that gave Montana a 51-48 lead, one the Lady Griz would never give back.

Montana would extend its lead to six, 61-55, on an Ehrman basket with 2:45 remaining, but those would be the final points of the game for the Lady Griz, who had to sweat it out to the final buzzer.

White hit a 3-pointer from the left wing with 1:27 left to make it 61-58, then JBionna Robinson drove and scored to bring the Lumberjacks within one, 61-60, with 36 seconds on the clock.

After a Montana miss, the Lumberjacks had the ball in their front-court with six seconds on the clock and the always-dangerous White on the floor. But the Lady Griz had something as well: fouls to give.

NAU in-bounded the ball to White, who searched for an opening. Before she could get a shot up, Macy Donarski fouled White, taking precious seconds off the clock and forcing another throw-in, this one with two seconds left, reducing the Lumberjacks to essentially a final catch-and-shoot.

"We played it the way we wanted to," said Harris. "We tend to be hyper-aggressive in those situations and not let people run their stuff."

Still, White got the final in-bounds pass on the right wing and had an open look from the 3-point line that would have won the game.

She had 27 against Montana in Flagstaff, 29 against the Lady Griz in Missoula. She had 24 when the ball left her fingers on Saturday and ended the game at 24. Her shot hit the front of the rim, the back of the rim, then bounced off.

"She is obviously a tremendous, tremendous player," said Harris, "so a little bit of holding your breath and holding off the memories of 360-some days ago."

He meant last March, when Montana State hit a last-second shot to end Montana's dream in the championship game. They'll meet again on Sunday, their sixth game in the last two seasons.

The first two meetings this season were essentially decided in the first quarter. The Bobcats jumped out to a 13-0 lead in their 82-44 win in Bozeman and led 17-4 and 34-10 in their 72-55 victory in Missoula.

"The No. 1 thing is we have to start better," said Harris. "That's been the thing that's bugged us in both of our games. I have to have us better prepared. If we can start better, we can give ourselves a chance."

Montana State is 23-6 and went 16-2 in league to finish a game behind regular-season champion Idaho, which will play Weber State at noon on Sunday in the day's opening quarterfinal.

The Bobcats have won 10 of their last 11 games, their only setback an overtime defeat at Idaho.

"I trust our kids are going to rest and prepare, then we'll cross our fingers that we get a couple of kids feeling better, get a couple of kids back who can give us some juice and an infusion of energy," said Harris.

"We're here to compete and we're going to get after it tomorrow."