Gabie Doud couldn’t be stopped in her home gym in the first half. When Fort Lewis College finally slowed her down, Hannah Cooper and Katie Dalton picked up the slack in the second half.
Doud started the game 7-of-7 shooting, including 2-of-2 behind the 3-point line, and made her first eight free throws before she finally missed a 3-point shot shortly before halftime. Behind her 24 first-half points, Western Colorado took a slim 42-39 lead into halftime at home Friday night inside Paul Wright Gymnasium in Gunnison.
FLC (11-4, 7-3 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference) contained Doud and limited her to four points on four made free throws in the second half, but Cooper would finished with 16 points, six assists and four rebounds, while Dalton added 15 points and four rebounds to help send the Mountaineers (10-4, 8-2 RMAC) to a 84-72 win against the visiting Skyhawks. Doud finished with game highs of 28 points and nine rebounds in 26 minutes of action.
“We knew she was a good player and would be able to shoot the ball and get offensive rebounds,” FLC head coach Orlando Griego said of Doud. “We couldn’t match her play. The second half, the biggest thing was making sure we had awareness where she was. We knew if we were going to make that adjustment to take her away that her teammates would step up and play at a high level, and they found the open gaps and scored.”
Western Colorado took over sole possession of third place in the conference with its fourth consecutive win and sent FLC to fourth.
The Skyhawks had a well-balanced attack, as Bailey Osmer came off the bench to lead FLC with 15 points on 7-of-14 shooting. Kayla Herrera-Flores added 12 points and five rebounds, while Jordan Carter scored 11 points on 5-of-6 shooting. But Carter played just 14 minutes. Sydney Candelaria added 10 points and five assists.
Western Colorado took away FLC point guard Katrina Chandler, who has been on a scoring tear in 2020. She finished with four points on 1-of-6 shooting, and she had only two assists to go with two turnovers.
“We kind of had an idea of what they wanted to do defensively,” Griego said. “The biggest thing they did was, once we drove to the lane, they collapsed hard. They brought extra defenders and made good contact.”
The Mountaineers shot 50% from the field and made 9-of-22 from 3-point range.
FLC trailed 66-61 after three quarters, but the fourth belonged to the home team. FLC was within seven points midway through the quarter. Once Western Colorado stretched it to double-digits, it ran away with the final four minutes of play.
“We came down and took a couple too many jump shots pretty early on in the fourth,” Griego said. “Unfortunately, those didn’t fall. During the game, those were falling for us. They would come down and get a good possession, a good look or get to the free-throw line and score after those misses. They played well, but our girls did, too. We hung in there being on the road.”
The game started 15 minutes after the original scheduled tipoff time. Griego said that threw his team off and led to a bit of a slower start in the first quarter.
The Skyhawks’ end to a four-game road trip will come at 5:30 p.m. Saturday in Grand Junction. It will be one of the toughest games of the year against Colorado Mesa University (14-2, 10-0 RMAC). The Mavericks, which are five points away from being ranked into the top 25, have won 12 consecutive games and are 8-0 at home in Brownson Arena this season.
“We gotta regroup,” Griego said. “They are playing really good basketball, and we’re still playing good basketball. As good as they are, we’re a good team, too. We expect it to be a good game.”
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
