@UNCBearsWBB Huge Run in Second Half Leads to Win over CSU

Thursday, March 19

Fort Collins, Colo.

7:00 pm

University of Northern Colorado

21-12

Colorado State

23-8

Northern Colorado

Colorado State

Photo by: Rob Trubia

3/19/2015 11:09:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score

The Bears finished on a 22-7 run to defeat Colorado State Thursday Night

By: Ryan Pfeifer, UNCBears.com

FORT COLLINS – It wasn't always pretty, but Northern Colorado women's basketball earned a 53-48 comeback victory over Colorado State Thursday night in Moby Arena.

It is the school's second postseason win since joining the Division I ranks.

The Bears closed the final 12 minutes of the game on a 22-7 run. In the first 28 minutes of the game UNC scored just 31 points.

Northern Colorado overcame a bad night shooting (31.9%) with solid defense, rebounding and getting to the foul line. The team forced 17 CSU turnovers, outrebounded them 38-31, including 13 offensive boards and connected on 16 free throws.

"We just had to keep grinding it out and running our offense as much as we were struggling tonight," said head coach Kamie Ethridge. "Finally we got it going and we were able to get the win."

UNC's run to end the game was jump started by back-to-back Kourteney Zadina (Seward, Neb.) 3-pointers to cut the Rams' lead to three just past halfway through the second half. The six points in that stretch were her only points of the night, but they were huge for the Bears.

"It was hard we were not hitting anything offensively, but then Kourteney hit those two baskets and gave us a spark to get going," Mallon said.

After Zadina's mini run sophomore classmate Katie Longwell (Parker, Colo.) went on an 8-0 run of her own to get the Bears all square with the Rams at 46 with 4:22 left to play.

Longwell finished the night with 11 points, including going 2-3 from beyond the arc.

From that point on UNC would outscore CSU 7-2.

A Lindsay Mallon layup at 3:45 in the second half gave Northern Colorado its first lead since the 3:24 mark in the first half.

The Bears never relinquished this lead and with a D'shara Strange lay up, the advantage pushed to four with 2:11 left. Strange then found Mallon on a beautiful cut from the wing to keep UNC up four (52-48) with just 16 seconds remaining.

"D'shara has been playing forward for us," Ethridge said, "But she still has all of her guard skills and it really helped us and it showed at the end of the game."

Strange was the UNC's leading scorer with 14 points to go with her 13 rebounds and five assists.

Meanwhile Mallon finished with seven points, nine rebounds, two assists and two steals.

The 12 point comeback is the biggest of the season for the team.

In the first half neither team could seem to buy a basket combining to go 5-28 from the field in the first 12 minutes.

During that time CSU went without a field goal for 10:29, but responded strong making their next eight of nine shots.

That run of good shooting helped Colorado State have the 28-26 lead at half time. Free throws were a big reason why UNC was within two at the break, going 11-14 from the line.

The poor shooting continued for the Bears at the beginning of the second half too. Strange's free throw at the 14:11 mark was the team's first points of the half.

Once UNC started to see the ball go through the hoop though they took off on the 22-7 run to end the game.

Northern Colorado will now return home for another game at Bank of Colorado Arena at 5:00 p.m. against South Dakota (26-7) for the second round of the WNIT. South Dakota defeated Creighton 68-58 on Thursday night to advance.

"I am really excited for our team to be able to play at home," said Ethridge. "We are really thrilled to play again at home and have our home crowd behind us on Sunday."