ROCHESTER, Mich. – Their first of two consecutive home games against Mid-American Conference (MAC) opponents to begin the 2022-23 season, the Oakland Golden Grizzlies defeated the Akron Zips, 74-67, on Monday, November 7 at the O'rena.
Hitting five of her nine 3-point attempts, sophomore guard
Kennedie Montue led the way for Oakland with a career-high 21 points and five rebounds.
Junior forward Alexis Johnson, playing her first game in a Golden Grizzly uniform after transferring from the Marshall Thundering Herd, gave Oakland a big boost in her 25 minutes off the bench, finishing with 12 points on 5-of-11 shooting and four rebounds.
Senior
Breanne Beatty and freshman guard Brooke Daniels also scored in double figures, tallying 11 and 10, respectively. The Golden Grizzlies' leader, Beatty filled up the rest of the stat sheet with seven rebounds, three of which came on the offensive end, three assists and two steals.
Despite being hampered all night by foul trouble, sophomore Reagan Bass – one of nine native Buckeyes on the Zips' roster – recorded a team-high 18 points in just 21 minutes.
Guard Rachel Martindale – a senior who is from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the same hometown as Montue – hit five of her 10 3-pointers for 15 points for Akron and redshirt junior Layne Ferrell also reached the double-digit mark with 11.
Consistently scheduling difficult early-season opponents, this is the first time Oakland has begun 1-0 since 2018-19.
The Golden Grizzlies led by two at the halftime break, 40-38, and were up as big as 14, 56-42, midway through the third quarter, but much of this contest was a two-to-three-possession game and the Zips had it as close as two, 67-65, with 1:29 to play.
While collegiate rosters are always fluid resulting in great turnover from one year to another, this was an Akron program that finished in third place in the MAC in 2021-22 and played in the Women's National Invitation Tournament (WNIT), giving the Golden Grizzlies a strong season-opening victory.
There are, of course, always areas to improve and fine-tune, but overall, Monday featured a lot of positives for Oakland to build on throughout November.
"It's a great way to start the season," head coach
Jeff Tungate said in his postgame GrizzVision.
"This is a really hard-working group, they're extremely coachable, they do what they're coached to do and you never know who's going to step up and it seemed like it was someone different every quarter tonight.
"So, it was a great way to start the season, great win, great environment, good crowd. Hopefully, it was an entertaining game and they want to come back and see us on Saturday, we've got alums coming back on Saturday, so it's another important game against Central (Michigan), but I'm really proud of our team tonight and how they performed and it's good to start with a win."
To Tungate's point about different Golden Grizzlies stepping up in each quarter, it was Montue who carried the team in the first 30 minutes with 20 points during this time frame and Beatty coming through late with six in the fourth quarter.
Beginning with Beatty and paired with the emergence of Montue, Johnson and graduate student guard Raquel Ferrer-Bernad, Oakland's veteran leadership helped seal the deal Monday, a trait not found in every team.
"A player-led team is better than a coach-led team and they do a great job of knowing where each other needs to be and they hold each other accountable," Tungate said.
"I've said this all year, they hold each other accountable and take it, and that's a great sign. We beat a really good team, Akron's a really good team, they did a really good job and did a lot of good things. Again, we're not anywhere near where we need to be, but we'll definitely take this and get ready for Saturday."
For those interested in the historical impact, Monday was the fourth-ever meeting between the Golden Grizzlies and Zips and Oakland has now won three of those. This was the first battle since November 17, 2018 and the first in Rochester since December 30, 2003.
UP NEXT
Completing their two-game homestand against MAC foes, the Golden Grizzlies will welcome in the Central Michigan Chippewas (0-1) on Saturday, November 12 at 2 p.m.
This tilt will air live on ESPN+ (subscription required), and can be accessed using
this link.
The Chippewas lost at home to the Missouri Valley Conference's (MVC) Valparaiso Beacons, 71-64, on Monday.
GRIZZVISION WITH HEAD COACH JEFF TUNGATE AND SYDNEY CARIEL
