The Montana Lady Griz struggled against an aggressive Nevada Wolfpack defense, bust broke open a tight game midway through the second half for a 59-51 win in the championship game of the 2008 Lady Griz Holiday Classic before 3466 fans Tuesday.
Senior point guard Mandy Morales shook off a cold-shooting first half to score 15 points in the Montana victory. Forward Lauren Beck played a masterful floor game, with four rebounds, an assist and two blocks to go with her 13 points. Senior shooting guard Sonya Rogers added 11 points.
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Britney Lohman and Sarah Ena dominated the paint, leading Montana to a 37-32 advantage on rebounds. Ena pulled down 10 boards and scored seven points, while Lohman had seven boards to go with her nine points.
Guard Dellena Criner led the Wolfpack
with 13 points on 5-of-10 shooting with
four assists.
However, Criner turned the ball over eight times. Forward Cherlanda Franklin had 10 points on 5-of-7 shooting.
The game was a classic matchup of iron-willed defenses, a glove-tight man-on defense against Montana’s scrambling flex zone defense. In the end, Montana’s zone won out, holding the Wolfpack to 33.9 percent shooting for the game, though Nevada’s aggressive defense limited the Lady Griz to 40.4 percent on the night.
PHOTOS: Shadra Robison battles for a loose ball in first half action. Robison suffered an ankle injury early in the second half and did not return to action. Sarah Ena grabbed an offensive rebound and scored the putback to give Montana a 48-40 lead with six minutes left. Cherlanda Franklin (#25) defends.
The first half ended with the Wolfpack scrathing out a 25-24 lead after leading by as many as four. The teams battled on even terms through the early stages of the second half until Rogers and Morales nailed a trey on an assist by Rogers, reserve Stephanie Stender made a pair of free throws and Sarah Ena battled for an offensive board and a putback.
That flurry gave Montana its largest lead, 48-40 with six minutes remaining. And that was enough to hold the pack off until the final 45 seconds when six straight free throws extended Montana’s lead to 10.
Though Nevada was winless in the tourney – having lost to Hampton in an upset of sorts on Monday – the Wolfpack executed a well-conceived defensive strategy against the Lady Griz.
Montana coach Robin Selvig credited Nevada for its tough defensive play.
“That was a hard-fought victory,” said Selvig. “Give Reno credit. I mean they played well, they defended us well, and they battled (by) bouncing off what I’m sure they felt was a disappointing game yesterday. They came with a lot of energy and it was a dogfight till the end.
PHOTO: Britney Lohman had nine points and seven rebounds and was joined Sonya Rogers and Mandy Morales on the all-tourney squad.
“I thought we did a pretty good job defensively the whole night, “ said Selvig. “It was a question of whether we were going to make some shots in here somewhere. And we really made some plays down the stretch,” said Selvig.
Morales was named tourney MVP and was joined by Montana’s Rogers and Lohman, Criner of Nevada and Hampton’s Chinyere Ukoh and Whitney Hill.
The Lady Griz take an impressive 11-3 non-conference record into the first week of Big Sky Conference play, which tips off at 2 p.m. Saturday afternoon with game one against Montana State (6-6) at Dahlberg Arena.
