Flagstaff, Arizona - Despite an extremely close first half the Thunderbird women's basketball team fell on the road Saturday afternoon to the Northern Arizona Lumberjacks 57–47.

With the loss the Thunderbirds fall to 3–11 on the season and 0–3 in Big Sky play. The contest in Flagstaff was the third straight on the road for SUU to open the Big Sky Conference season.

SUU head coach Chris Boettcher said there have been some struggles playing on the road the past two weekends.

“Being on the road is tough, winning on the road is tough,” he said. “Especially with a young team, and as much as we work and prepare and talk and try to do things to get them ready there's something about not being in your natural environment.”

In the first quarter the Lumberjacks had built up and eight point lead, but the Thunderbirds quickly went on an 8–0 run to tie the contest up at 18–18 at the end of the first quarter.

Even though NAU held the lead for most of the second quarter it never got higher than a three point advantage as the Thunderbirds matched them step for step. At the end of the second quarter the game was all knotted up at 29–29.

NAU turned the ball over 11 time in the first half and the T-Birds took advantage, scoring 13 points off those turnovers.

NAU's offense came alive in the second half and the Thunderbirds struggled to get going on that side of the ball, resulting in a 44–34 Lumberjacks lead after three quarters. NAU outscored SUU 15–5 in the third quarter.

In the fourth quarter the Lumberjacks built their lead as high as 13 and the T-Birds didn't have a response as they fell 57–47.  

Dari Frandsen had a huge game for the T-Birds, scoring 13 points and pulling down 10 boards in the contest.

“In the last month Dari has finally gotten over that freshman hump and the things that she did in high school that made her so successful are starting to come out again,” he said. “She works so hard to get rebounding position and she's been a really good player for a really long time on her high school team. She understands the ability to step up and take a scoring role or a rebounding role and she works so hard to do it.”

Smith put in 11 points and Taylor Baird scored 10 points and pulled in seven rebounds.

Alyssa Rader led the way for the Lumberjacks with 19 points and 10 rebounds and Rene Coggins had 14 points to be the second leading scorer.

Next up for the Thunderbirds will be two home games, starting with Eastern Washington on Thursday night.