CEDAR CITY, Utah - The Southern Utah women's basketball team closed out one of their most successful regular season campaigns in recent memory Friday night with a 84-81 overtime win over Montana.
The win put the Thunderbirds at 17-12 on the season and 11-9 in Big Sky play. Their 11 conference wins are the most since 2013-14 when they won a share of the conference title.
"It was a great comeback win and we played really well in overtime. Overall, we competed and we played really hard down the stretch when we needed it," head coach Tracy Sanders said. "Before the game we talked about how important this was for the seniors and I think that had a huge impact on the way we played tonight. Becca did what she does and put us on her back there at the end, Harley made a couple steals to keep us in it, and you can see that Ashley is getting back to 100 percent and that's exciting for us as we head into the tournament."
Rebecca Cardenas led all scorers with 24 points in her final game in Cedar City. She also added seven assists and five steals and shot 50 percent from the field. Harley Hansen had 15 points and three steals. Darri Frandsen picked up a double-double with 14 points and 11 rebounds and also had four blocks.
Montana came out hot, shooting 85.7 percent from the floor and putting up 27 points on the T-Birds in the first quarter. The Thunderbirds were down by 11 at the end of the period, but didn't give in.
They came out in the second quarter and held the Grizzlies to just 36.4 percent from the field. They opened the quarter with a 8-0 run to cut the lead to just three. Montana was able to build their lead back up to 11, but the T-Birds would cut it back down and go into halftime down 40-34.
The teams continued to battle in the third quarter trading buckets back and forth with the Lady Griz slightly outscoring the T-Birds 19-17. Their biggest lead of the game came in the third when they led by 13 with 6:56 to play. They went into the fourth quarter leading 59-51.
The Thunderbirds came out in the fourth quarter and opened up a 14-6 run with Hansen and Cardenas doing most of the heavy lifting. They tied the game at 65-65 with 4:45 left to play on a three-pointer from Madelyn Eaton. Montana continued to fight back going up by four two different times and they led 72-70 with 17 seconds to play. With five seconds to go, Cardenas hit a step back jumper from mid-range to tie the game and send it to overtime.
The T-Birds shot 66.7 percent in overtime and never trailed after Frandsen scored the first bucket to put them up by two. They led by as much as five in the period and closed out the win after a missed three and two missed free throws from the Grizzlies.
"We have a group that is giving us 100 percent. We might not be the biggest or the strongest, but we are playing the hardest and we play for each other," Sanders said. "We are excited to keep playing and we feel good about what lies ahead for us."
The Thunderbirds will head to the Big Sky Conference Championship Tournament next week as the sixth seed. They will play Weber State on Monday March 9 in game three.
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