Madison Hall Leads Bobcats to Emotional Win Over Lady Griz on Saturday

Saturday, January 20

BOZEMAN

2 p.m.

Montana State University

9-9,3-2Big Sky

Montana

11-5,3-2Big Sky

Montana

Montana St.

Madison Hall

Photo by: Bobcat Creative Services

Madison Hall Leads Bobcats to Emotional Win Over Lady Griz on Saturday

1/20/2024 6:56:00 PM | Women's Basketball

Box Score

Montana State overcame a blistering start by UM and a late injury to teammate Katelynn Limardo

By: Bill Lamberty

BOZEMAN, Montana – The wait between the moment Montana State forward Katelynn Limardo crashed to the floor on a foul while gathering a loose ball and when she left Worthington Arena during MSU's game Saturday against Montana seemed interminable. In fact it was a little more than 20 minutes, with the Cats holding a narrow 58-55 lead.

But when it was over, and Bobcat guard Madison (Jackson) Hall stepped to the free throw line to shoot Limardo's free throws, a switch flipped. "That's a long time to be waiting to have to go and shoot free throws," MSU coach Tricia Binford said. "At the same time we knew Jack was the one that was going to shoot free throws and all of a sudden they're in a huddle and (Jackson said), 'This one's for KJ.'"

Hall calmly drained the two free throws after the intentional foul called on Montana's Maggie Espenmiller-McGraw with 14 seconds to play, then made two more after a foul on the inbound pass to seal Montana State's emotional win. The victory was the team's 10^th straight home win against their arch-rivals.

"It's really tough seeing one of our key players going down in a game and the stretcher coming out," Hall said. "That's really tough for the whole team to see because we're all united as one, we all care for one another a lot. This is something we're going have to pray about a lot, for her, for our team, and keep moving on to the next game and stay together and be as composed as possible."

"I'm going to make these for her," Hall said as she moved to the free throw line coming out of the long break. "I didn't feel any pressure. I truly wanted to make these free throws for that girl. Her mom and her dad, it was heartbreaking to see them in tears, they were stressing because their daughter's down. It hurt really bad to see her in that situation. But I had that confidence because I had my team backing me."

For a time early, any late-game dramatics seemed improbable. The Lady Griz scored the game's first seven points, and led 19-5 on Gina Marxen's three-pointer at the 3:23 mark of the first quarter. At that moment, 7-for-11 shooting, 5-for-8 from three-point range. From that point on, MSU held the Lady Griz to 12-for-42 from the floor and 5-for-18 from deep.

"They've been a great three-point shooting team," MSU forward Marah Dykstra said of the defensive tweaks Montana State made after calling its second time out. "They were hitting a lot of shots and they were moving the ball well, so we said we've got to take away their primary actions and primary looks. Make them play us the whole shot clock."

Binford said those changes came in the normal ebb and flow of the game. "You don't want them to get rhythm threes because when one or two go in the rim gets a lot bigger. We (said), 'We have to play through it now because I'm down to two timeouts.' So I feel like the kids tightened that up. It was less attacking the ball and more getting out to shooters. We talked about them getting us on the back side, too."

On the next possession, Brooke Berry made a layup, then the Issy Bunyan's short jumper cut the lead to 19-9, and a Hall layup drew the Cats to within 19-11 at the end of the first quarter. "That (scoring run) created huge momentum for us as we continued to chip away," Binford said. "That got the crowd behind us and into the game."

Limardo hit a triple to open the second quarter, then Taylor Janssen made a hook shot and Ella Johnson made a three-pointer to tie the score with 5:27 to play in the first half. UM led 30-24 at the intermission, but from Dykstra's two free throws with 1:18 to play in the third quarter the Bobcats never trailed again. The Lady Griz tied the score on two Carmen Gfeller free throws with 3:45 to play, but Natalie Picton answered with a triple and the Cats led the rest of the way.

Montana State overcame UM's hot start to out-shoot the Lady Griz 39.6% to 35.6%. While the Bobcats were out-rebounded 38 to 32 the Bobcats forced 20 Montana turnovers to MSU's 14.

In addition to the Cats winning their 10^th straight home game against UM, the victory was Tricia Binford's 200^th Big Sky win as Montana State's head coach. That is the second-most in league history. Binford is now 20-20 all-time against UM.

The win evened Montana State's season record at 9-9, and the Cats are now 3-2 in the league. Montana is 11-5 overall, 3-2 in Big Sky play. Montana State visits Idaho State on Monday night.

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