How ’bout those Lady Griz?
Life certainly has been interesting this season for veteran Montana Lady Griz head coach Robin Selvig, his assistants and their players.
That the team would be young was a given from the start. That replacing the highly productive guard line of Mandy Morales and Sonja Rogers would be tough was a given from the start.
That a lot would fall on the shoulders of all-purpose Lauren Beck and inside presence Sarah Ena was – you guessed it – a given from the start.
Questions about how three true freshmen would respond to playing early and often in their careers loomed large. But those questions might have been the ones most quickly answered.
The emergence of Katie Baker, Kenzie De Boer and Alyssa Smith happened quickly, especially for Baker, who established herself as the team’s leading scorer and rebounder before going down with a season-ending knee injury Jan. 8 at Eastern Washington.
De Boer and Smith, along with returnees Beck, Ena, Jessa Loman Linford, Stephanie Stender, Shadra Robison, Alexandra Hurley and Shante Nance-Johnson, all have elevated their games to make up for Baker’s loss.
At the core of giving this team a chance to win any game it goes into is that old Selvig staple, defense. When the Lady Griz are having trouble scoring, which is an ongoing problem again this season, they have consistently kept their opponents from burning up the nets and given themselves a chance to win.
The result of all of this? The Lady Griz are smack dab in the middle of the Big Sky Conference race, tied for second with preseason favorite Portland State, one game behind surprising Eastern Washington, which leads the league at 7-1.
So don’t count the Lady Griz out, even with five of their last eight league games on the road. If they can pick up wins at Weber State and Idaho State this weekend they will carry some strong momentum into their home stand against Portland State and Eastern Feb. 12-13.
They’ve handled pressure coming at them from a lot of angles so far this season. Let’s see if they can handle the pressure of a challenging stretch run.
I wouldn’t bet against them.
- Bill Schwanke
Bill: I agree. What a great job of coaching this year. Clearly recruiting the talent is important, but to blend them into such a potent defensive team so soon (3 freshmen on the floor often) is a real feat. Robin and his staff are to be congratulated. Is a building year ever supposed to be this much fun? I think those three freshmen are absolute dynamite and will be the guts of a really potent team for the next three years. But can we every be satisfied? We will need a couple point guards and a shooting 2 guard and maybe another post. Come-on Robin… And while we’re on the Lady Griz, how come we can’t get Ashley Ferda over that injury? What’s the story?
Comment by Don Robson — February 8, 2010 @ 12:30 pm