by Bill Lamberty
MISSOULA, Montana – Like the hero in an action movie, Darian White finds a lot of different and creative ways to destroy her opponent.
On Saturday in Missoula’s Dahlberg Arena, Montana State’s sensational senior guard poured in 22 points to lead all players in a 72-63 Bobcat win against Montana. The smallest player on either team’s roster at 5-6, White shared game-high honors with seven rebounds. She also added two assists and a steal.
“When Darian gets going, obviously we can put the ball in her hands,” said Montana State coach Tricia Binford. White got rolling, but out of the gates Bobcat forward Lexi Deden initiated the action. The Missoula native scored MSU’s first six points, and when White hit a jumper the Cats led 8-4. White’s next basket gave MSU an 18-8 lead, but UM trimmed it to 18-16 at the end of the first quarter.
White hit a three-pointer and two jumpers to open MSU’s scoring in the second quarter, but a Dani Bartsch layup and a jumper by Sammi Fatkin gave UM a 24-23 lead. The teams traded baskets throughout the second quarter, and MSU held a slim 35-33 lead at the intermission. White logged 15 points in the first half.
One minute 20 seconds into the second half Kola Bad Bear drained a pair of free throws, then White made a jumper and Taylor Janssen hit a triple and with 7:21 to play in the third quarter Montana State led 44-35. Grace Beasley’s layup just over one minute later pushed the lead to 11 points and the Lady Griz never drew within single digits again until the final seconds.
Beasley averaged 7.2 points entering Saturday’s showdown, but she scored 13 against UM. “We feel like we’ve got a second weapon with Grace coming in,” Binford said, “and Grace was super aggressive today for us. She’s really played big in some of those bigger games for us. I go back even to LSU in Hawaii. She’s really fearless, and the team played off of that.”
Binford recognized that rivalry games generally feature ups and downs, and she credited her team for handling those. “Great composure,” she said of her team. “The pregame speech was, ‘What do you want the headline to be tomorrow regardless of stat line? Your ability to stay together, your ability to respond, there’s going to be momentum swings, there’s going to be loud moments, there’s going to be quiet moments, what can we control in those situations? ‘ I felt like they did a great job. That was one of the most composed teams in Dahlberg that I’ve coached, and we’ve had a lot of good teams over the years. I felt we responded every time.”
