The Wildcats are going to the final four. The final four of the Women’s Basketball Invitational (WBI) was set when Weber State took down the #3 seed North Dakota on the road in Grand Forks.
The final score was 76-74 after a closely contested battle that stayed tight until the final buzzer rang. The Wildcats won with a short roster, using only seven girls in the game, while UND used all 12 of their players.
It was a quick turnaround for the Wildcats who flew to North Dakota on Saturday morning, took a bus ride to the hotel in Minnesota and had to cross between the two states several times before ultimately beating UND.
This was the third matchup of the season between Weber State and North Dakota with the Wildcats pulling out their second win of the season in North Dakota.
Coach Bethann Ord said, “It’s hard playing a team three times in a season, but you get to know them well.”
Going into halftime, the Fighting Hawks held a slim lead at 35-31 with three Wildcats tied for the scoring lead at 8 points each.
By the time the game was over, Deeshyra Thomas was the scoring leader with 30 points followed by Kailie Quinn with 24 and Jaiamoni Welch-Coleman with 10 points. Quinn, the Salt Lake City Sniper, made four of her 3-pointers, while picking up four rebounds.
The rebound leader for the Wildcats was Jocelyn Adams who collected nine rebounds, six of them on offense. Welch-Coleman was also able to grab seven rebounds during the game.
When it came to dishing out assists, nobody on either team was better than Brittney Dunbar who dished out seven assists in the second round victory. It was another slow day at the block party for the Wildcats. They only picked up a pair of blocks, one from Quinn and another from Adams.
Dunbar once again proved why she was the Big Sky Defensive Player of the Year by collecting six more steals, with the whole team only picking up nine steals total. The game was physical down to the last possession where it was tied at 74 points with 9.2 seconds on the clock.
Dunbar inbounded the ball to Thomas before she finished her utter takeover with a layup at 4.4 seconds left in the game. This gave North Dakota senior Kelsey Knox one final shot.
Her heave from half court clanged off the back board capping off her collegiate career and ending North Dakota’s season. The next game for the Wildcats will be against South Carolina-Upstate in the WBI semifinals.
The game will be played on March 23 at the Dee Events Center.
Coach Ord said, “We’re breaking records every day, lets have Ogden break a record and fill the Dee on Wednesday night.”
