Idaho shoots its way past UND 78-64 in Big Sky game
The 1,935 fans that turned out for Saturday's Big Sky Conference game between UND and Idaho at The Betty witnessed two rarities:
• One, Idaho's 78-64 win over the Fighting Hawks gave the Vandals a rare Northern Colorado-North Dakota road sweep. Idaho won at Northern Colorado on Thursday, 79-71. "I think this is the toughest road trip, honestly, in the Big Sky when you put in the travel and quality of teams you're playing," said Idaho coach Jon Newlee. Since UND joined the Big Sky in 2012, only one league team—Montana State —has swept the Hawks and UNC on the road. That came during the 2013-14 season.
• Two, Idaho's Mikayla Ferenz recorded a triple-double, 15 points, 13 rebounds, 10 assists.
The triple-double by Ferenz almost was an afterthought considering the play of Geraldine McCorkell, whose torrid 3-point shooting early staked the Vandals to a comfortable second-quarter lead they never gave up. McCorkell finished with a career-high 34 points.
The loss wiped out some hard-earned momentum earned by UND recently as the Hawks came in with back-to-back wins over Northern Colorado and Eastern Washington. UND dropped to 3-6 in the league and 10-10 overall while Idaho, which has won four in a row, improved to 6-3 and 10-10.
"We went away from what gave us success," said UND coach Travis Brewster. "We shot too many 3s and didn't go inside enough. You could see that because we didn't get to the free-throw line enough and we have to get to the line. And we got outrebounded (41-32)."
UND was 8 of 25 on three-pointers and went 8-for-9 from the line. UND combined to shoot 30 three-pointers in its wins against UNC and EWU.
UND, however, started well, leading for much of the first quarter.
But McCorkell's shooting took over in the second. Her three 3-pointers helped the Vandals to a 46-33 lead at the break. The Vandals were 9 of 15 beyond the arc in the first half and finished 11 of 27.
UND trailed by 16 late in the third quarter before staging a mini-rally. Fallyn Freije (16 points) scored with 3:27 left, cutting Idaho's lead to 68-61. But the Vandals showed enough patience on offense and closed out the win at the line in the final minutes.
The Hawks received a big boost off the bench from 6-foot-5 freshman Melissa Leet, who finished with 11 points, making 2-of-2 from beyond the arc.
"The past two games I've been a lot more involved and prepared," said Leet, who saw the floor for 11 minutes.
The Hawks also received 13 points from Lexi Klabo and 12 from Jill Morton but they couldn't match Idaho's three-point shooting and the overall play of Ferenz, a 5-10 junior who played all 40 minutes.
UND now hits the road for games next week at Montana State and Montana—arguably the Hawks' toughest Big Sky road trip of the season.
"Can't take anything away from Idaho," added Brewster. "They shot the ball when they needed to, got stops when they needed them and got rebounds when they needed them.
"Our players are pretty bummed out but that's part of the game. You have to figure out how to get better each week. It's a long journey."
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