MONMOUTH, Ore. – With the game tied entering the final 10 minutes, the Western Oregon University women's basketball team put together a big fourth quarter to take the 80-68 victory over Alaska Fairbanks on Tuesday night in Great Northwest Athletic Conference action inside New PE Gym.
"Fairbanks is a much tougher team than their record says and I thought they out played us for most of the night. I'm happy to escape with the win, but disappointed in our defense. We're a much better defensive team than we showed tonight," head coach Holli Howard-Carpenter said.
Casandra White played nine minutes on the night, but it was a big nine minutes. In the fourth quarter alone White hit a trio of three-pointers to help give WOU (6-5, 2-2 GNAC) the boost they needed.
On the defensive end, Amber Winkler was coming up with multiple blocks, six to be exact, to go along with seven rebounds and 10 points. The six blocks are the second-most in a GNAC game this season.
The Wolves had four reach double-figures in scoring with Cali McClave posting a team-high 16 points, along with six rebounds. Tresai McCarver had another big game with 15 points, eight rebounds and seven assists. Madisyn Clark added 13 points, five rebounds and three assists.
"We didn't shoot particularly well, but we gave ourselves a lot of second opportunities. All the posts really put in work on the glass. We were solid again from the free throw line and that's the difference in the game. Casandra was huge tonight, she gave us a great lift off the bench and I'm really proud of her," Howard-Carpenter said.
Entering the fourth quarter, White began to warm up hitting a three-pointer just 20 seconds in. After UAF (1-8, 0-3 GNAC) answered with a three to tie the game back up, White hit another three-pointer to put WOU back ahead by three. After a free throw by Clark was answered by a three-pointer from the Nanooks, White hit her third straight triple to push the lead to four just over two minutes into the final frame.
Alaska Fairbanks refused to go away, coming back to take the lead at 66-65 with 4:36 to play. WOU then finished strong going on a 15-2 run to close out the game. McCarver started the final push hitting a rainbow three-pointer from the wing. Cali McClave added a triple of her own before a jumper by Alexis Wright was converted near the foul line to move WOU out to the 73-66 lead with 1:30 to play.
After UAF got back to within five, WOU hit seven of their final eight free throws to seal the win.
Early on, the first quarter was a back-and-forth battle as the Nanooks held several three-point leads before WOU tallied the final four points with Ana McClave hitting a jumper and off a steal by Ana McClave, McCarver hit a layup at the first quarter buzzer for the 17-16 lead for WOU.
WOU held several four-point leads throughout the second quarter and after UAF fought back to tie on a couple of occasions, Clark capped the first half hitting a deep three-pointer to send WOU into halftime with a 36-31 lead.
The Nanooks tallied the first four points of the third quarter to trim the deficit to one. The Wolves stretched the lead out to seven a couple of times off of free throws by Winkler and Kaelin Williams-Kennedy before UAF surged back again to tie the game at 53 heading to the fourth quarter.
For the game, WOU went 24-68 (35.3) from the field, 11-36 (30.6) from three and 21-29 (72.4) from the foul line. The Wolves held the edge on second chance points (15-12), bench points (19-18) and fastbreak points (9-8).
Pearle Green put together a huge game for UAF tallying 26 points, hitting 9-10 from the field and 7-8 from three. She also had five rebounds, two assists and two steals. Destiny Reimers added 18 points, while Claudia Diez Marti reached double-figures with 14 points. The Nanooks went 24-61 (39.3) from the field, 8-20 (40) from three and 12-21 (57.1) from the foul line.
With another scheduling change this week, WOU will now host Montana State Billings this Friday at 5:15 p.m. That game was originally scheduled for Thursday at the same time.
"Quick turnaround with a tough Billings team on Friday. We have two days to get some things figured out and we'll be back at it. This team is resilient and they work hard to get better each day and for that I am thankful," Howard-Carpenter said.
