Northern Colorado's 3-Point Barrage Comes Up Short Against Colorado State, 69-59
GREELEY, Colo. - The University of Northern Colorado women's basketball squad put up a valiant effort Sunday night in Butler-Hancock Hall against intra-state rival Colorado State, 69-59.
The Rams were able to withstand a three-point barrage from the Bears and improved to 7-4, while the Bears dropped to 3-10.
Northern Colorado hoisted a season-high 48 three-pointers and drained a season-best 15 of them to hang with Colorado State. CSU tallied only 51 shots on the night, compared to UNC's 67 total shots.
Northern Colorado missed tying an NCAA record by four three-point attempts. Cal Poly and Alabama each attempted 52 three-pointers in a game to set the NCAA single-game record. Northern Colorado's school record for three-pointers attempted is 51, set last season against Colorado Mines.
A trio of Bears drained three triples in the contest. Junior Cindy McCarroll was a perfect 3-for-3 from beyond the arc. Junior Molly McGrath and sophomore guard Kendra Lambrecht also drained a trio of trifectas.
On a night when three's came raining down, Colorado State's Vanessa Espinoza also took part in the action. She scored a game-high 24 points and drained 6-of-8 from three-point range. Colorado State made 10-of-17 from downtown in the contest.
Northern Colorado's biggest lead in the contest came in the first half after back-to-back three's from Lambrecht gave the Bears a 29-24 lead. But the Bears would not score the rest of the half and CSU clawed back with a 6-0 run, which included a pair of buckets in the 40 seconds of the half from Melissa Dennett.
The Rams kept the Bears at bay in the second half. CSU never relinquised the lead to the Bears in second half despite UNC tying the game on two occasions at 45-45 and at 48-48.
McCarroll drained a pair of three-pointers to knot the game at 48-48, but she then suffered from an athletic-induced asthma attack that caused her to sit out of the game for five minutes. When McCarroll returned to the floor, CSU had regained the lead and the momentum in the contest.
"That's just one of those things that if Cindy could have stayed in the game we had a lot of momentum on our side," head coach Ron Vlasin said. "But we gave it our all and I am proud of our effort tonight, I just wish we could have hit a few more threes in the second half and we'd be talking about a huge win."
Northern Colorado will travel to the state of Utah later this week for a pair of contests. The Bears will take on Weber State on Thursday at 5:05 p.m. (Mountain) and then will take on Utah on Saturday at 3 p.m. Thursday's contest can be heard on a tape-delay on 1310-AM KFKA at 7:05 p.m. (Mountain), while Saturday's contest will be carried live on KFKA.
NOTES: McGrath set a new career-high with 11 points ... the Bears committed only 14 turnovers and entered the game averaging 20.3 turnovers per game ... CSU went 11-for-20 from the foul line, while the Bears went only 2-of-4 ... CSU won the rebounding battle, 46-36.
