First Half Deficit Too Much To Overcome for @UNCBearsWBB

Saturday, January 16

Bozeman, Mont.

2:00 pm

University of Northern Colorado

7-9, 2-4BSC

Montana State

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Northern Colorado

Montana State

Photo by: Dean Popejoy

1/16/2016 5:22:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score

Northern Colorado women's basketball trailed by 13 in the first half and unable to comeback from it

By: Ryan Pfeifer, UNCBears.com

BOZEMAN, Mont. – The Northern Colorado women's basketball team was unable to pull off another cardiac Bears comeback on Saturday afternoon in Bozeman falling to Montana State 66-58.

"I feel better about this team after this game than I have in a while," head coach Kamie Ethridge said. "I think we finally made some strides to being a better team and having a better competitiveness. We put ourselves in a spot to win this game even though we got down by 13 early and really showed a lot of guts and character fighting back."

The game started out well for UNC with Kourteney Zadina hitting a game-opening three, but after that the first quarter belonged to the Bobcats.

Zadina finished the day with seven points and four rebounds.

MSU went on a 12-0 run from the 5:40 mark to the 1:53 mark of the quarter to build a 14-5 lead. By the end of the quarter, Montana State led 19-8.

In the quarter, UNC turned the ball over eight times and was out-shot 60.0 percent to 30.0 percent.

The Bears were able to cut into the Bobcats lead in the second when they held MSU scoreless for a 2:56 span to get within eight. That would be the deficit UNC faced going into the half.

Coming out of the break, neither team seemed to be able to buy a basket, missing the first 11 combined shots of half.

Freshman Courtney Smith ended that drought with a lay-up set up by Savannah Scott.

Smith finished the game with eight points, six of them coming in the first half to keep UNC in the game.

"Courtney Smith played unbelievably well for us today. She has shown progress every single day for us this season. The progress she has made as a freshman has been very impressive," Ethridge said about her freshman center. "She comes to practice every day ready to listen and learn along with watching Rebecca (Howell) and learning
from her. It is great to know we have someone who can come in and give Rebecca a break at times too with how she has progressed."

Meanwhile teammate Scott had another double digit scoring game with 10 along with leading the team in rebounds (5), assists (5) and steals (4).

Montana State missed its first nine shots in the quarter and did not score until there was just 3:38 left in it. Despite the poor shooting, they still held a 39-32 lead going into the final 10 minutes of play.

Northern Colorado opened the fourth quarter with a flurry of 3-pointers, to get within one of MSU. During the run early on, Katie Longwell hit two of her four threes in the game.
She finished as the team's leading scorer with 12 point to go with two assists, a block and an assist.

After UNC got within one with 6:37 left, Montana State's Jasmine Hommes scored five straight points to extend the lead to six. She end the game with 13 points, for second most in the game behind teammate Peyton Ferris' 24.

The Bears would make one last run at a comeback pulling within three at the 3:25 left, but would not get any closer than that.

"We are still a team that has little room for error and we missed some box outs and bad offensive possessions that gave them a better chance to win," said Ethridge.

UNC returns home next week for two games, starting on Thursday when they host Southern Utah at 7:00 p.m.