The Vandals were unable to carry the momentum from their Nov. 27 victory against Eastern Washington to Missoula. The Vandals went 0-2 at the Lady Griz Holiday Classic, losing to Montana and Tennessee State.
File photo by Steven Devine | Argonaut
Alyssa Charlston releases a shot during a game against Eastern Washington Nov. 27 in Memorial Gym. The women visit UC Irvine at 7 p.m. on Dec. 5.
The Vandals will stay on the road this week when they travel to Southern California to play UC Irvine and UC Riverside. Idaho will not be back at home until Dec. 29 when the Vandals open WAC play against Seattle U.
Idaho played Montana earlier in the season and lost big, by a score of 71-50. This time around the Vandals played the Griz much tighter, but it still wasn’t enough. The Vandals set a program record for 3-pointers with 15, while shooting 48.3 percent from behind the arch, but the effort fell short as Montana went on to win 76-65. Idaho coach Jon Newlee said he was much happier with this performance than the last time his team met Montana.
“Our effort was much better tonight than when we played them in Moscow,” Newlee said. “We came out with a lot of energy. Unfortunately we turned the ball over like crazy. Twenty turnovers is just hard to overcome. When they take 14 more shots than we take, that’s a killer.”
The Vandals were plagued with 20 turnovers on the night, which Montana turned into 23 points. The bright side for Idaho was the five players the Vandals had in double figures. Freshman Christina Salvatore led Idaho with 15, while freshman Connie Ballestero scored 13. Stacey Barr, Alyssa Charlston and Addie Schivo also scored in double figures, which Newlee said he likes to see.
“I love to see that our offense is an equal opportunity offense,” Newlee said. “But I will tell you Alyssa needs to take more than five shots. The other night she had 18 attempts, and that’s where I’d like her to, somewhere between 15 and 20 attempts. We need to find ways to get her the ball more often with an opportunity to score.”
In the second game of the tournament the Vandals led Tennessee State by as many as 13, but weren’t able to hang onto the lead and went on to drop their second straight game 69-64. Tennessee State never gave up and was able to come back to tie the game with under eight minutes to play. The two teams exchanged blows after that, but the Tigers had the momentum and carried it till the end to escape with a victory.
Turnovers were once again an issue for Idaho. The Tigers turned 14 Vandals turnovers into 14 points and out scored Idaho 38-26 in the paint.
The Vandals showed some variety on offense, again with Charlston, Barr and Salvatore all scoring 12 points, but the inability to protect the ball once again doomed the young Idaho squad.
Idaho has shown a lot of improvement in the early stages of the season as the Vandals have been right in most of their games, but they are having trouble putting together two solid halves.
Kevin Bingaman can be reached at [email protected]
