DILLON, Mont. – Junior Nneka Nnadi's first 20 minutes of Frontier Conference play in the 2015-16 season were excellent and helped carry the (11) Lady Argos to a 79-70 win in their first conference game.
Nnadi scored 19 in the first half against the University of Montana Western Bulldogs as part of UGF's efficient 10-17 shooting. The preseason All-Conference player scored 11 of those points in the second quarter to give the Lady Argo's a 47-36 lead at the half. She finished with 21 points.
"Nneka played great and that was part of our game plan going in," said head coach Bill Himmelberg. "We really talked about putting it inside and punishing them down low. Our girls did a really good job of executing that."
The success of Nnadi, and junior center Whitney George, in the post opened up shooting space outside for the Lady Argos 3-point shooters.
Those shooters, particularly senior Erin Legal and junior Morgan Grier, combined to shoot 50 percent from distance, with eight total threes. Legal finished with a team high of 23 points while Grier finished with 13.
"I thought we had a really good overall team effort tonight, with almost five players scoring in double digits," Himmelberg said. "The girls did a great job of executing what we talked about both offensively and defensively."
The fourth UGF player to score over ten points was George, who not only added 13 points to the team's total but was also tasked with defending former NCAA Division I player, Molly Klinker. While Klinker led her team with 21 points, George and the rest of the Lady Argos forced her under 50 percent shooting and limited the scoring from the rest of her teammates.
"We said going in that Molly would probably get her points, but we wanted to try and limit the rest of the team's offensive," Himmelberg said. "Western has a very good team and they're going to win a lot of conference games this year. This win was a good way for us to start conference play."
Along with her 23 points, Legal also led the team with nine rebounds and seven assists. Nnadi was next in rebounds with seven.
With one conference game and one conference win under their belt, the UGF women's record comes to 7-2(1-0). Their road trip will continue on Saturday, Dec. 5 when they play Rocky Mountain College at 5:30 p.m.
