NAU women’s basketball head coach Laurie Kelly had plenty to be thankful for at her team’s annual Hilton Garden Inn NAU Thanksgiving Tournament. She claimed her 100th career win at the helm of the Lumberjacks in a 61–57 victory over her previous school, Binghamton, on Nov. 26. However, the Lumberjacks fell short in taking the tournament crown, falling to Drake 67–52 the following night.

“Actually, going into the game, I didn’t know that was the situation,” Kelly said. “Obviously it’s a memorable win to beat Binghamton; it shows the great players that have played here at NAU and some of the great teams we’ve had to be able to accomplish that. I sure would’ve liked 101 in the championship game, though.”

The Lumberjacks jumped out to a 10-point halftime lead in their tournament opener and led by as many as 15 with 11 minutes left to play. However, the Bearcats worked their way back and tied the game at 55.

Following a timeout, sophomore guard Tyler Stephens-Jenkins put NAU ahead for good with a 3-pointer with 33 seconds remaining, and the Lumberjacks held on to advance to the championship game.

“We came out and tried to maintain our home court advantage, keeping our court ours with a win,” Stephens-Jenkins said.

But the tournament title would be won by the Bulldogs as the Lumberjacks fell behind early — 14–4 to start the game — and were never able to pull off the comeback victory. Drake shot 47.9 percent from the field for the game and held NAU to 33.3 percent shooting.

“We battled hard against Binghamton, but Drake is a better team than we are right now,” Kelly said. “It’s funny, because from a conditioning standpoint, they looked like they were the team that played at altitude. We’re struggling to score, so we need to step up and make some plays, knock down some open shots. We didn’t play well against Drake, and walking away from that game, it was easy to say that they were the better team.”

Sophomore guard Amy Patton scored a tournament-high 23 points in the win over Binghamton, and junior guard Caty Huntington led NAU with 11 points in their loss to Drake. For their play, Patton and Huntington were named to the All-Tournament Team.

“I think we played very well [during the tournament],” Huntington said. “But we haven’t reached the potential that we should be at right now. As a team, we learned a lot from ASU and UA; they’re two really good Pac-10 teams, and we can take that as we get closer to the Big Sky.”

Since their season-opening losses at ASU and UA, the Lumberjacks have won three of their last four games and stand at 3–3 after winning all of five games last season. Although the team is struggling on the glass — being outrebounded 37–26 and 40–34 against Binghamton and Drake, respectively — the team is headed in the right direction as they get closer to conference play.

“Our big focus right now is rebounding,” Stephens-Jenkins said. “Our last game against Drake was a very good Big Sky game, even though they’re not in the Big Sky. It was a good test of where we are, and I think we’ll be ready by the time we get there.”

The Lumberjacks continue their season-long seven-game homestand with games against San Jose State on Dec. 1 and Utah State on Dec. 4.

“The one thing about winning the conference and trying to be a top team is that you have to win at home,” Kelly said. “Coming into this week against San Jose State and Utah State, those are two games we need to win. We need to get things going at home, and we look to get back on the winning track.”