Weber tops Montana in OT

OGDEN — While Jerrick Harding played his usual scoring hero role, Cody John and Michal Kozak were worthy sidekicks. But if Harding was Batman, and John and Kozak were Robin and Jim Gordon, then Kham Davis was Alfred Pennyworth — working in the background, cleaning up messes and inspiring his team. Weber State needed all four of those characters while grinding out an 87-85 overtime victory over league-leading Montana on Saturday night at the Dee Events Center.

All five of WSU’s home conference games have been one-possession games, decided by a total of seven points. The win moves Weber to 2-3 in those contests. Harding scored 32 points in the victory, and he’s averaging 29 points per game over his last four outings. “It feels amazing to finally pull one out,” Harding said with a big smile. “We’ve had a lot of close ones this year and we finally finished a game, and against the No. 1 team in our conference. It feels very good.” None of Harding’s buckets were bigger than a tough runner to tie the game 72-72 with eight seconds left in regulation, or his driving, spinning twirl-of-a-layup he scored to put Weber up 79-78 with 2:40 left in overtime.

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For the game, Weber State shot 24 of 28 from the line. Davis spent much of the game guarding Manuel, who entered Saturday averaging 15.2 points per game but scored 10 against WSU on 5-of-17 shooting.
Montana shot 35 of 70 for the game and 8 of 16 from 3, including Josh Vazquez, who entered the night 0 of 19 from deep in conference play before connecting on all four longballs he took Saturday. The Griz also committed only five turnovers but couldn’t overcome the free-throw disparity, going 7 of 11 at the line. Two of UM’s four free-throw misses came in crunch time, including a 1-for-2 trip from Pridgett that was sandwiched between Davis’ 3-pointer and the Harding runner that tied it at 72-72.
Pridgett scored a career-high 33 points on 14-of-29 shooting. Timmy Falls added 16 points, scoring 14 in the first half and later fouling out with six minutes left in regulation.

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