The Northern Arizona women's basketball team got double-digit scoring efforts from senior Caty Huntington and junior Amy Patton, but the Lumberjacks went just 3-14 from the free-throw line in a 73-56 road loss to South Dakota on Friday night.
South Dakota got 30 points and eight rebounds from senior Amber Hegge in the win, which evened NAU to 2-2 on the season.
"South Dakota is very good at home and they came out of the gates strong while we came out a little slow," NAU head coach Laurie Kelly said. "They just did not miss very many shots, and Hegge was just really hard for us to handle.
"I thought we didn't have as much energy as we had in our last two games, and it's hard to win on the road against good teams."
South Dakota jumped on the Lumberjacks early, scoring the first five points of the game and opening up a 15-6 lead before the first official timeout. NAU responded with a 6-0 run to cut the deficit to three, but that would be as close as the Lumberjacks could get.
Huntington opened the second half with a three-pointer to cut the deficit to six, but South Dakota responded with an 11-0 run to build a 17-point advantage. The home team led by as many 21 points.
The Lumberjacks made just three free throws and shot 21 percent from the line in the loss. NAU shot 40 percent from the field while South Dakota shot 53 percent and connected on 10 three-pointers.
The Lumberjacks were narrowly outrebounded 35-34, the first time this season that they have not won the rebounding battle. NAU committed a season-low 13 turnovers in the game while South Dakota had just 14 giveaways.
Patton finished with 11 points and seven rebounds, but was just 5-14 from the field. Huntington had 10 points and made 2 of 3 shots from three-point range, and sophomore Khyra Conerly finished with eight points and a team-high three assists and three steals.
With her 11 points, Patton moved her career total to 1,079, moving past Lea Ann Evers (1,073) into eighth place on the NAU all-time scoring list. She needs just nine more points to jump to sixth.
For the Coyotes, Hegge scored her 30 points on just 17 shots and was one of three South Dakota players to make a trio of three-pointers.
The Lumberjacks play at Iowa State at 4:30 p.m. Sunday.
COLLEGE RUNNING
The Northern Arizona men's cross country team will travel to Terre Haute, Ind., for Monday's NCAA National Cross Country Championships. The squad is looking for its fifth-consecutive top-10 finish at the meet.
"There's not much to do now in terms of preparation," director of track and field and cross country Eric Heins said. "It's a delicate balance of having them do workouts to maintain their fitness, but at the same time not back them off so much to where they feel sluggish. It's the same type of workouts we've done for five years now heading into this meet."
The Lumberjacks received an at-large bid into the national meet by coupling a third-place finish at the NCAA Mountain Region Championships last Saturday in Provo, Utah, with a consistent Top-15 national ranking throughout the season.
NAU returns four runners to the national stage in 2011. Seniors Diego Estrada and Andrew Belus are competing for the third time in Terre Haute, while senior Jordan Chipangama and junior Tim Freriks will make their second appearance. These four, along with senior Matt Coloe, earned All-Region honors in Provo.
Estrada (2010-16th) and Chipangama (2009-5th) both have earned All-American honors previously at the national meet, so their one-two punch and experience up front in the biggest race of the season will be essential to NAU's success.
Estrada has placed in the top five in all four of his meets this season, including two individual titles. He earned medalist honors at the Oklahoma State Cowboy Jamboree on Oct. 1 against Oklahoma State, then took the crown at the Big Sky Championships on Oct. 29, shattering the course record and finishing 23 seconds better than the rest of the field.
Chipangama returned this season after missing all of last year due to injury. He has been the Lumberjacks' surefire No. 2 runner all season, and his top-five finish at the national meet in 2009 will be extremely beneficial to the team's effort.
NAU has recorded eight top-10 finishes at the NCAA Cross Country Championships since 2000, including two fourth-place podium visits in their last four championship efforts.
Indiana State hosts the championship race at the LaVern Gibson Championship Course located at the Wabash Valley Family Sports Center in Terre Haute. The men's race will begin at approximately 10:08 a.m. local time, followed by the women's race at approximately 10:58.
A live webcast of the championships will be broadcast from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Arizona time Monday on NCAA.com.
COLLEGE DIVING
Junior Kristy Ardavanis reached the consolation final and placed third in the 3-meter competition to lead NAU on the opening day of the Wildcat Diving Invite. Ardavanis placed 11th in the preliminary round and scored a 258.65 total in the consolation final to lead five Lumberjacks competing with 16 other schools in the 3-meter event.
Ardavanis posted a 248.80 score in the prelims to miss the finals by just three spots. Freshman Kali Lents had the next-best finish for the Lumberjacks, totaling 213.00 to place 24th overall. Senior Cassie Anderson finished 34th at 198.55, while sophomore Gwen Smithberg (191.65) and freshman Katie Dallmann (162.25) rounded out the NAU scoring.
The Wildcat Diving Invite continues at noon today with the 1-meter competition.
Editor's Note: Information in this report was provided by the Northern Arizona University Sports Information Department.
