THE MATCHUP
On the opening night of college basketball around the country, the Montana women’s basketball team opened its 2022-2023 season at home against North Dakota State.
THE RESULT
The Lady Griz struggled shooting the ball all evening, including on its final two possessions, which resulted in missed shots from senior guards Sammy Fatkin and Gina Marxen as NDSU emerged with a 65-63 victory in front of 1,891 fans at Dahlberg Arena on a snowy, frigid Monday evening in Missoula, Montana.
Fatkin, who finished 9-of-26 from the floor, hit a mid-range jumper on a sweet out of bounds play for her and Montana’s final bucket to give the hosts a 63-61 lead with 58 seconds left. NDSU answered with freshman Elle Evans converting through contact and completing the old-fashioned three-point play.
Emily Behnke blocked Fatkin’s potential go-ahead shot from the baseline with 13 seconds left. Evans would add one more free throw to push the lead to 65-63.
With 11 seconds left, the Griz ran an out of bounds play for Marxen, who was pushed far away from the basket and had to settle for a long 3-pointer from several feet beyond the arc that missed the mark to drop UM to 0-1 in the first game of head coach Brian Holdsinger’s second season leading Montana.
THE STANDOUTS
North Dakota State senior combo guard Heaven Hamling scored 13 of her team-high 19 points in the first five minutes of the third quarter, a scoring barrage that included all three of her makes from beyond the 3-point arc. Her lay-up in traffic helped give NDSU a 47-37 lead with 4:54 left in the third frame, the largest advantage of the night for a Bison squad picked to finish 5th in the Summit League in the preseason poll.
Abby Draper came off the bench to nail all four of her 3-point attempts (NDSU went 7-of-21 from deep) and finished with 12 points. Evans, a talented freshman, scored 10 points and dished out three assists.
Marxen, a former All-Big Conference selection during her standout few seasons at Idaho, played in her first game since two seasons ago with the Vandals. After sitting out all of last season, she showed little rust, controlling the tempo of the Lady Griz offense fluidly and, at times, taking over the game. She finished with 21 points on 6-of-9 shooting, including 4-of-6 from beyond the arc. She also dished out four assists.
Fatkin, a former transfer from Arizona who came back for her final season after being granted an extra year of eligibility, added 19 points but it took her 26 shots to get there. She was 0-of-3 from beyond the arc and 1-of-4 at the free throw lien as the Lady Griz missed 12 free throws in 25 attempts.
Sophomore Haley Huard scored nine points and hit a pair of 3-pointers (the Lady Griz finished 6-of-21 from deep) on an evening when the hosts were without Carmen Gfeller, a senior who was a first-team All-Big Sky selection a year ago and a preseason all-league pick entering this season.
QUOTABLE
Toward the end, you can feel the nerves, the pressure because it was a big game. Toward the end, the last few possessions, we didn’t really execute the way we wanted to. They came down, scored two baskets and put pressure on us.
We didn’t get what we wanted, exactly, on the last possession. Their defense stepped out and pushed me out toward the sideline. We just didn’t execute.
Montana junior point guard Gina Marxen
I was nervous beforehand. It hit me before and when we were doing lineups because it has been a long time since I stepped out on the court and play again. We have great support here at Montana and my teammates, my coaches really have my back and helped settle me. It feels good to be back.
Gina Marxen
Montana head coach Brian Holsinger
It was ugly, a little bit. I told them at halftime that the first five minutes would be important and we came out and didn’t have the energy or execute well and they got a 10-point lead. But I’m really proud of our fight and our energy. We took advantage of our speed. I liked our response to being down, but I didn’t like our execution and a lot of that is on me. It’s early and some of those situations, you have a young team and you have different people in different spots, so that will get better.
“We didn’t execute at the end. Gina didn’t get the shot we wanted her to get. She played a really efficient game and we wanted to get her the ball but we didn’t quite get it and that’s an execution error, mostly on me because we just haven’t had time to run through some of those things.”
Brian Holsinger
“We are missing Carmen right now and we definitely missed her tonight. But we have to have other people step up and find a way to win a game like this….we didn’t deserve to win down the stretch. We dug ourselves a hole, didn’t make enough plays down the stretch and ultimately, didn’t deserve to win.”
Brian Holsinger
SOCIAL
Other Big Sky Conference women’s results
| Monday 11/7/2022 | Away | Home | Location | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Providence (Mont.) 31 |  Montana State 78 | Final | BOZEMAN | Box Score | |
 Idaho 63 |  University of Utah 88 | Final | Salt Lake City, UT | Box Score | |
 Northern New Mexico College 50 |  Northern Colorado 91 | Final | Greeley, Colo. | Box Score | |
 North Dakota State 65 |  Montana 63 | Final | Missoula, Mont. | Box Score | |
 Corban University 47 |  Eastern Washington 86 | Final | Cheney, Wash. | Box Score | |
 Westminster 42 |  Idaho State 62 | Final | Pocatello, ID | Box Score | |
 Northern Arizona 68 |  Arizona State 69 | Final | Tempe, Ariz. | Box Score |
Other Big Sky Conference men’s results
| Monday 11/7/2022 | Away | Home | Time | Location | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Northern Arizona |  Michigan State | 5:00 p.m. MST | East Lansing, Mich. | ||
| Idaho 63 |  University of Denver 68 | Final | Denver, CO | Box Score | |
| Northern Colorado 36 |  Houston 83 | Final | Houston, Texas | Box Score | |
| Idaho State 56 |  Brigham Young University 60 | Final | Provo, UT | Box Score | |
| Montana State 54 |  Grand Canyon 60 | Final | Phoenix, AZ | Box Score | |
| Eastern Washington 72 |  Santa Clara 84 | Final | Santa Clara, Calif. | Box Score | |
 Weber State |  Washington | 9:00 p.m. MT | Seattle, WA | TV: Pac-12 Network Washington Stats Radio: 103.1 FM “The Wave” Audio Video | |
 Sacramento State |  UCLA | 8:30 p.m. PT | Los Angeles, CA |
WHAT’S NEXT
Montana will play at Colorado State on Friday at 5 p.m. The Rams, picked third in the Mountain West Conference, open their season at BYU on Tuesday.
