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Jake Bacon/Arizona Daily Sun NAU's Alyssa Wahl, #30, fights University of Wisconsiin Green Bay's Rachel Porath for the ball during game action Saturday night in the final of the La Quinta Inn and Suites Thanksgiving tournament. To get this photo, go to photos.azdailysun.com
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The streak ends
By CHRIS GABEL
Sun Sports Staff
Sunday, November 26, 2006
In the overall scheme of things, Saturday night's loss in the championship game of the La Quinta Inn & Suites Thanksgiving Tournament may mean little, but it still hurt the NAU's women's basketball team.
The Lumberjacks came up short in their bid for a third straight tournament title and continued to follow the theme of the early part of the season.
"We did not play to our potential but were still in the game," coach Laurie Kelly said after her team fell 75-64 to Wisconsin-Green Bay. "They were the best opponent we've played this year ... but they were another team we feel we could have beat."
Despite numerous spurts that brought the crowd into the game, the Lumberjacks (3-3) were unable to overcome a early Green Bay run and could not compete in the free-throw contest that much of the second half turned into.
The Phoenix (3-2) went on a 10-point run midway through the opening half to build a 12 point lead. NAU was able to claw back into it a number of times but never pulled even or held the lead after the 13-minute mark of the first half.
"It was a hard-fought game. Northern Arizona kept coming and coming and coming," Green Bay coach Kevin Borseth said. "One of the hardest things to do is play a (tournament) host team on their floor."
But every time, like when the Lumberjacks began the second half on a 6-0 run to cut the score to 34-33, the Phoenix had an answer. And a majority of the time it came from the charity stripe.
Green Bay had 26 free-throw attempts in the second half, 10 more than the number of shots it took from the field, and finished 28 of 32 for the game. Meanwhile, NAU was 11 for 20, including 9 of 18 in the second half.
"I could tell they were confident in their free throws -- they never even stepped off the line (to rebound)," said NAU's Alyssa Wahl, who finished with 15 points and along with Katie Schafer was named to the all-tournament team.
Nicole Soulis, who finished with 20 points including 8-of-9 free throws, and Natalie Berglin were the Phoenix's representatives. Soulis came into the game not the focal point of the offense, Borseth said, but that changed.
"They way the game was going we had to go inside instead of finessing it," Borseth said.
Soulis also has a factor at the defensive end as Green Bay used a sagging defense to limit the touches for Wahl and Megan Porter, who finished with five points less than 24 hours after scoring 24 against Kent State. The Phoenix outscored the Lumberjacks 36-16 in the paint.
Borseth said he was less concerned with NAU's perimeter shooting than its inside presence.
That almost backfired as Schafer hit 4-of-8 3-pointers as far of her team-high 18 points to continually keep the Lumberjacks within striking distance.
"They were sagging off and there wasn't a lot of perimeter pressure," Schafer, who admitted to being a bit shocked by her all-tournament selection, said. "I'm just trying to prove myself, just trying to play basketball."
The loss comes in the middle of one NAU's toughest stretches of the season. Including this weekend's contests, the team plays five games in nine days, culminated by next weekend's ASU Classic in Tempe.
"This is a lot harder pre-conference schedule. We face a lot of difficult teams," Porter said. "But the better teams the better it is for us."
Chris Gabel can be reached at cgabel@azdailysun.com or 556-2251.
LA QUINTA INN & SUITES THANKSGIVING TOURNAMENT
Championship: Wisconsin-Green Bay 75, NAU 64
Third-place: Kent State XX, Minnesota XX
Wisc.-Green Bay 75, NAU 64
GREEN BAY (3-2) -- Soulis 6-10 8-9 20, Groh 3-4 3-3 9, Berglin 3-7 2-2 9, Porath 2-5 4-4 8, Popp 3-6 3-4 9, Harty 2-2 2-2 6, Glover 2-4 0-0 4, Webster 0-3 0-0 0, Templin 2-6 6-8 10. Totals 23-47 28-32 35.
NAU (3-3) -- Dinkins 3-6 0-0 6, Porter 2-3 1-4 5, Wahl 5-11 4-6 15, Cunningham 4-8 0-1 9, Winkfield 1-7 2-2 4, Ingle 0-1 0-0 0, Blackman 1-4 0-0 3, Matthews 1-1 0-0 2, Schafer 5-11 4-7 18, Ben 0-3 0-0 0, Fernandez 1-1 0-0 2. Totals 23-56 11-20 64.
Halftime: 34-27, Green Bay.
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