Box Score MONMOUTH, Ore. – Despite putting together its highest scoring output of the season, it was not enough for Alaska as Western Oregon shot well over 50-percent en route to a 90-81 Great Northwest Athletic Conference women's basketball victory Thursday night at the New P.E. Building on the WOU campus.
“The women played really hard and I'm proud of that,” head coach
Cody Burgess said. “They never quit and we were with them, but couldn't get the best shots we wanted. Our team shot phenomenally at the free throw line, we had more steals and caused more turnovers.”
Lorrie Clifford scored a game-high 28 points to lift the Wolves' record to 7-18 on the season and 6-9 in league play, while the Nanooks fell to 6-20 overall and 2-14 in the GNAC.
Clifford shot nine of 14 from the floor and hit a pair of three-pointers while sinking all eight free throw attempts. Three others scored in double figures as
Jade Haas had 15 points and tied for a game-high seven rebounds and
Dana Goularte and
Jacqee Jasinski had 11 and 10 points off the bench, respectively. WOU shot just shy of 57-percent (33-58) for the game and won the rebounding war by a slim 38-36 margin. It had plenty of bench production, as the reserves accounted for 31 points.
Senior
Nicole Bozek (Mukilteo, Wash./Kamiak) led the Nanooks with a team-high 25 points as she made a career-best 15 free throws on 16 attempts, also a career high. Freshman
Nicole Hartzog (Beaverton, Ore./Beaverton) had 19 points, while senior
Autumn Greene (Lewiston, Idaho/Centralia CC) contributed 16 points and six steals. Hartzog also tallied a career-best seven rebounds, while dishing out five assists.
“Teams are really doubling [Bozek] and pressuring her so it helps that she can draw the foul and get to the line,” Burgess said. “People will zone in on her because she can score low at the basket and she gets a lot of contact down there, gets to the line and helps us out [offensively].”
Alaska shot 38-percent (24-63) from the floor but got to the free throw line 37 times, making 31 of its tries (.838) to outscore the Wolves (21-31 FT) by 10 from the charity stripe. The Nanooks forced WOU into 23 turnovers and had a 14-11 lead on offensive rebounds.
Neither team led by more than two possessions for most of the first half, but WOU scored eight of the frame's final 12 points to snag a 49-41 halftime advantage.
Trailing 59-49 three minutes into the second, the Nanooks went on a 10-4 run to trim the deficit to four at 63-59 with 12:21 to go. A few minutes later with the Wolves leading by five, they scored nine in a row in less than 90 seconds to bolster the lead to 77-63 with 8:29 left. Alaska got to within five in the final minute, but the double-digit discrepancy was too much to ov”ercome.
The Nanooks return to the court Saturday at 7 p.m. (PST) when the take on Saint Martin's in Lacey, Wash. The Saints struggled with 11th-ranked Alaska Anchorage on Thursday, falling 74-42.
