UC Riverside
Montana
Montana Defeats Highlanders, 77-67
12/19/2005 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
The visiting Montana Grizzlies defeated the host UC Riverside Highlanders, 77-67 in a non-conference game in front of 627 fans at the Student Recreation Center in Riverside Monday. The Highlanders fell to 0-7, while the Grizzlies won their ninth straight, improving to 9-1.
Senior guard Rickey Porter led the Highlanders with 16 points and freshman guard Houston Power had 15 points on 5-of-11 shooting. Senior guard Steve Williams added 10 points for the Highlanders. UCR's 11 treys was a season-high.
The Grizzlies Andrew Strait had a career high 31 points on 14-of-21 shooting and Kevin Criswell added 14 points. Jordan Hasquet had eight points and a career-high nine rebounds and Virgil Matthews had nine points and a career-high 10 assists.
The Highlanders started five freshman, Sean Cunningham, Benoit Bekono, Joey Knox, Power and Christian Soto, for the first time this season. The first half was very close, with the the Grizzlies taking a 32-30 advantage into the intermission. The teams traded leads seven times and battled through eight ties. Montana shot 50.0% (14-of-28) from the field and the Highlanders were 9-of-21, including 5-of-13 from the three point line.
The Grizzlies padded their lead to seven in the first minute of the second half, but UCR refused to quit, getting to within two at 56-54 with 8:09 remaining. But the Grizzlies came out aggressively following the media timeout and expanded the margin to seven on back to back layups and a free throw by Criswell to make the score 61-54, and the Highlanders never would get closer than five the rest of the way.
