The Retort

Ryan’s Buzzer Beater Lifts Yellowjackets over Nanooks, 61-60

February 19th, 2010 by MSUB Athletics For The Retort

Trailing throughout most of the second half, and by six with just 52 seconds remaining, the Montana State Billings women’s basketball team managed to get the ball with four seconds left and Kayla Ryan dumped in a buzzer beater off a Callie Kautzmann miss, to defeat the University of Alaska Fairbanks on February 6 at Alterowitz Gymnasium. The win snaps a four game losing skid for the Jackets and pushes their record to 10-9 on the season and 3-5 in Great Northwest Athletic Conference play.

“Coach Thompson and his players and staff deserve a lot of credit,” said Head Coach Kevin Woodin. “They played very hard and were very determined tonight. We really struggled with our shooting tonight, however I did like the offensive tempo of the game and our overall number of shots was good. We just missed a lot of shots that we should make. Part of that was due to Alaska’s defense but many were our own fault.”

The Nanooks’ Jessica Harrison hit a pair of free throws to put UAF up by six, 59-53, just under a minute to play. On the next trip down the floor, Yellowjacket sophomore, Kalli Stanhope, hit a three pointer from the right wing to cut the lead to three, 59-56.

After Head Coach Kevin Woodin took a 30 second timeout, MSUB was forced to foul Alexandra Melonson who scored 13 points and five boards with four steal in the game. Melonson hit her first but was unable to convert the second.

After Ryan grabbed her tenth rebound of the game, the Yellowjackets swung the ball around to Mandy Jacobs who connected on her lone triple of the night to get the defecit back to one, 60-59, with just 35 seconds to go.

Coming out of another MSUB timeout, the Nanooks had the opportunity to bring the game clock down to just one second, but with 13 seconds remaining, Ronisha Edwards, who had a game-high 21 points and 12 rebounds, drove the baseline and put up a shot that found the iron and was rebounded by the Yellowjackets’ Rachel Hansen.

As the ball went out of bounds when Jessica Harrison swatted a Stanhope lay-up attempt, Kautzmann tried to go up and under but overshot the basket into the waiting arms of Ryan. Ryan then went straight up with the shot with 1.1 second left and the ball bounced around the rim before dropping in for bucket.

Kautzmann and Ryan both scored double-doubles to lead the Yellowjackets for the night. Kautzmann ended up with 17 points and 10 boards, while Ryan scored 13 points and 11 rebounds. Stanhope and Sarah McNamee combined to score 23 points as both went for double digits. Ashley Reed had another clutch performance from the bench, grabbing eight rebounds.

The first half saw back and forth action throughout, but MSUB was able to build a lead and were up by as many as 10, taking a 32-29 lead into the break.

UAF came alive in the second half, shooting 37.9 percent from the floor, and raced out to a nine point lead, 44-35, as the Yellowjackets went cold. The Nanooks were able to maintain the lead by getting tough shots to fall and contesting most of the Jackets’ looks.

MSUB was able to hang around long enough to keep themselves in the game and cut into the lead toward the end. Having two players foul out with just over a minute to go did not help the Nanooks, who were playing with just seven players to start with.

UAF (1-19, 0-9 GNAC) dropped its 19th consecutive game, this the most heartbreaking of all, despite outshooting the Jackets with 37.3 percent shooting compared to 28.2 percent from MSUB. Along with Edwards and Melonson, Lakeshia Levi scored 12 points and 10 boards to join Edwards with double-doubles.

MSUB (10-9, 3-5 GNAC) outscored the Nanooks in the paint, 26-24, and managed to score 20 points off of 17 Nanook turnovers. The Yellowjackets won the rebounding battle 51-42 and managed 13 second chance points.

The Yellowjackets headed back on the road for a pair of match-ups at Western Oregon and at Saint Martin’s. The Yellowjackets defeated Saint Martin’s at home earlier this season but played the Wolves for the first time.