DENVER – The breakthrough finally came.
MSU Denver's talented but youthful women's basketball team finally put it all together Saturday night, defeating Central Washington 69-67 for their first victory of the season.
"It feels like the monkey is off our backs," Metropolitan State University of Denver coach
Tanya Haave said. "It feels really great. They were able to figure it out and do whatever they needed to do to win. We've been hungry for a win.
"It was a really a team effort. We really played for each other. And that's a really good team that we beat."
Leya Harvey's baseline jumper with 48 seconds left extended MSU Denver's lead to 67-64, then
Mariah Schroeder and Harvey each hit a late free throw as the Roadrunners (1-5) held off
the preseason choice to win the Great Northwest Athletic Conference.
Central Washington dropped to 3-3.
"Team basketball for 40 minutes," Harvey said. "We've been talking about consistency. Tonight we were able to put all the pieces together and stretch it out for the full game."
Consistency, team play and balance were in vogue for the Roadrunners, as seven players scored between 11 and eight points in the final game of the Holiday Inn Denver Cherry Creek Classic.
"That helps us out so much," Harvey said. "Even if someone is having a bad night, someone else can pick us up. That makes us harder to defend."
Bree Wellington and
Morgan Lewis each scored 11, with Lewis doing so while making all five of her field goal attempts.
Maggie Justinak had 10 points and five assists.
Jaela Richardson had nine points, seven rebounds, four assists, one steal and one block.
There's more.
Jaiden Galloway had nine points and six assists while making preseason GNAC player of the year Alexis Pana work for all 24 of her points. Harvey had nine points and five rebounds. Schroeder had eight points and seven rebounds.
"We executed a little bit better," Haave said. "We shared the ball a little bit better. We had 17 assists and only eight turnovers – we haven't had something like that in a while. We're learning to play with each other, and we kept the ball moving. And we did enough defensively to hang on for the win."
MSU Denver has had a better than 2:1 ratio of assists to turnovers in a single game just once in each of the last eight seasons.
Neither team led by more than six points, still MSU Denver was ahead for only 11:01 of the 40 minutes.
"We talked about it as a team," Richardson said. "When someone punches us, we've got to punch them back and we've got to punch them harder. That was a big emphasis."
Said Haave: "We did a really good job of staying in the moment. We're going to try to win this possession. We weren't scoreboard watching. Here, I felt like we were in the moment. 'Let's get this stop. Let's get execute on this possession. Let's get this rebound.' It was a gritty, gritty win and one that we sorely needed."
The Roadrunners' win in their final non-conference game give them a dose of confidence and momentum heading into Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference play this weekend against Regis (Friday) and Colorado Christian (Saturday).
"Look, we're a good team," Richardson said. "We're young, but we're a good team and we can win games."
