Salty afternoon .... Cardinal women battle, fall short vs. nationally ranked Salt Lake teams

Salt Lake 71, North Idaho 61: The Cardinals fell into a 21-7 hole after the first quarter, but outscored the Bruins 19-7 to cut it to 28-26 at halftime. 

With the game tied 51-51, Salt Lake's Ahnica Russell-Brown hit a 3-pointer to give the Bruins the lead for good with 5:04 remaining. 

"Our ladies played extremely hard," NIC coach Nathan Covill said. "In that second quarter, after starting the way they did in the first, it would have been easy for a lot of teams to pack it in, but I haven't seen that from this team this year. I knew we'd fight back, but where I'm struggling to get them is that with Essie (Galindo) in the starting lineup, how to get them to play off her and let Essie be Essie and make sure others are involved. It was an extremely gritty performance." 

NIC made it a 54-53 game before a late Bruin run put the game away. 

"I thought we were there, then turnovers came back and bit us in the butt," Covill said. "I'm really proud of our team right now. We need to find a way to win games that people don't think we can and help ourselves out. We'll get there, but we need to figure some things out. But I'm proud of the way they fought against a really physcial team." 

Thays Da Silva scored 19 points for Salt Lake. 

"It was more of what we weren't doing," Salt Lake coach Marcilina Grayer said. "We had too many girls that were trying to go 1-on-1 and weren't shifting the defense or defending the way we should have been. The energy changed and we had some key players on the bench. NIC can shoot it and they ran some good stuff and we got a little lost." 

Sophomore Kylani Rookstool scored 15 points for NIC. 

"We just talked about not gambling at halftime," Grayer said. "We were a lot more solid in our sets and played a lot better defensively in the second half." 

NIC plays at Snow on Thursday.

SALT LAKE 

Simran Williams 6-13 0-0 13, Ahnica Russell-Brown 3-6 1-2 8, Nari Powers 1-2 2-2 5, Tahys Da Silva 7-12 0-0 19, Laura Di Stefano 5-9 4-5 14, Fabiana Poindujour 0-0 0-0 0, Blanche Toualeu 0-0 0-0 Autumn Agnew 0-3 0-0 0, Analeise Maharaj 0-1 0-0 0, Ines Babaya 0-1 0-0 0, Jeanne Rodriguez 4-4 4-4 12. Totals 26-51 11-13 71. 

NORTH IDAHO 

Chloe Collin 1-2 0-0 3, Kylani Rookstool 3-6 8-10 15, Esmeralda Galindo 10-22 9-10 31, Iratxe Amorrortu 2-6 0-0 4, Summer Faleafa 0-1 0-0 0, Tiarnee Smith 2-4 0-0 4, Ripeka Edwards 1-1 0-0 2, Emmalee Secrest 0-0 2-2 2, Elisa Holakeituai 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 19-43 19-22 61. 

Salt Lake    21    7    16    27    —    71 

North Idaho    7    19    14    21    —    61 

3-point goals — SLCC 8-15 (Williams 1-3, Russell-Brown 1-3, Powers 1-1, Da Silva 5-7, Di Stefano 0-1), NIC 4-12 (Collin 1-1, Rookstool 1-3, Galindo 2-5, Amorrortu 0-2, Faleafa 0-1). Rebounds — SLCC 22 (Di Stefano 7), NIC 25 (Galindo 7). Assists — SLCC 10 (Williams 3), NIC 5 (Galindo 2). Team fouls — SLCC 23, NIC 15. Fouled out — none. 

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