MISSOULA — Sixty-some minutes into a tough and trying homestand weekend, Brian Holsinger finally got to relax.
With Montana up double digits on Northern Colorado in the fourth quarter of an 82-60 win Saturday, Holsinger leaned back on the corner of the scorer’s table, playing to the crowd. Suit jacket unbuttoned over his Montana-maroon dress shirt, Holsinger evinced the untroubled cool of a early-to-the-bar businessman waiting on his buddies to show up for happy hour, first-half gesticulations replaced by only a slight grimace when the Bears scored.
There was plenty of relief hidden in that outwardly unruffled pose. After splitting the first weekend of Big Sky Conference play on the road with a loss against Idaho and a win over Eastern Washington, Montana scored the first 10 points of the game Thursday against Northern Arizona, only for the Lumberjacks to storm back, take the lead by halftime and escape with a 76-74 win.
On Saturday, the Lady Griz went down 11-0 out of the gate to Northern Colorado – jacking up 3-point misses against the visitor’s zone defense, failing to contain Bears star Hannah Simental, and generally looking like the flaws exposed on Thursday were likely to be season-long issues. That’s why Montana’s comeback – a 37-14 run over the rest of the first half, and a comfortable, coasting second half – had Holsinger looking like he’d just spent a weekend at the spa.
In Holsinger’s second year, Montana is a mix of two groups on wildly different trajectories. In point guard Gina Marxen, wing Sammy Fatkin and stretch big Carmen Gfeller, the Lady Griz have three all-conference caliber veterans. That’s the core of a potential contender – but around them is nothing but youngsters, players like Mack Konig, Libby Stump, Haley Huard and Dani Bartsch who are ticketed to be the core of the next Montana contender. The issue is they’re not there yet.
That makes it difficult, in some ways, to measure Montana’s success this year by wins and losses. The Lady Griz are trying to juggle two different timelines. On Thursday, that was a fatal flaw. Gfeller, Marxen and Washington State transfer Keeli Burton-Oliver shot a combined 17 of 31 from the field, while everybody else was 11 for 31. Konig committed four of UM’s 11 turnovers in just 11 minutes, and NAU’s big second-quarter run came when Holsinger went to the bench heavily for the first time.
“Our youth is just evident in those moments,” Holsinger said Thursday. “Everything’s questionable. … We lose focus when we go to the bench, a lot of the time.”
Saturday, then, was a win on multiple fronts. Gfeller continued to be one of the most reliable scorers in the conference, scoring 24 points on 12 shots by mixing pick-and-pop 3-pointers and burrowing post touches. Marxen added 16 on seven shots, and Fatkin’s slicing drives into Northern Colorado’s zone and long-armed, active presence on defense seemed to shock the rest of the Lady Griz out of their early slump.
But wins are also coming on a smaller scale. With young players, you take the victories where you can get them, whether that’s Konig successfully navigating UNC’s press with no turnovers in 18 minutes, Bartsch teaming with Fatkin to form the first line of Montana’s successful counter-press, or Stump shooting something other than a pull-up jumper going left (Montana’s highest-producing freshman made both a pull-up jumper going right and a spot-up 3-pointer).
It was nice to have a team on the other side, too, that allowed leniency for some youthful mistakes. Northern Arizona on Thursday featured point guard Regan Schenck, stretch big Emily Rodabaugh and ex-Idaho State sharpshooter Montana Oltrogge, plus freshman post Sophie Glancey, who looks like a phenomenal addition to a team that played for the conference championship a year ago.
On Saturday, the Lady Griz got a Northern Colorado team that, aside from stalwart guard Hannah Simental and former UNLV transfer Delaynie Byrne, has a rotation constructed entirely of freshmen.
Second-year Bears head coach Kristen Mattio might be the head coach in the league most likely to sympathize with Holsinger on the perils of youth.
“I thought the score probably talked about how well we handled it,” Mattio said. “We have a lot of missed assignments right now. … It’s a growth mindset. How we look today won’t be the same as tomorrow. A lot of changes, a lot of growth, and I would anticipate that to continue.”
Aside from Simental, working the jab step to crack open space for her jumper on her way to 19 points, and promising freshman post Aniah Hall, who added 16, the Bears didn’t have many options to go to.
That likely won’t matter much to the Lady Griz. After two weekends of conference play, they’re not where they want to be. But they’re surviving, and every weekend they keep their heads above water is a chance to carve out development time that they sorely need.
“Today was a giant step forward,” Holsinger said. “We made things hard for them all game long, so I’m really encouraged by that.”
