FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT Birgitta Gray O: (406) 896-5917 E: birgitta.gray@msubillings.edu February 12, 2016 Senior Night on Saturday for Olson and Grimsrud MSUB Women’s Basketball on Facebook MSUB Women’s Basketball on ISSUU Senior Video with Monica Grimsrud and Janiel Olson GNAC Standings
Senior Monica Grimsrud leads MSUB in 3-point baskets.
This Saturday, Feb. 13, will be the last game at Alterowitz for fifth-year seniors Janiel Olson and Monica Grimsrud. BILLINGS, Mont. – Saturday, Feb. 13, will be the last game at Alterowitz for MSUB women’s basketball seniors Janiel Olson and Monica Grimsrud. The Yellowjackets (16-7, 12-3 Great Northwest Athletic Conference) are welcoming the GNAC’s newest member Concordia (Ore.) (5-18, 3-12) to Alterowitz as the late game during a doubleheader night with the MSUB men’s team.
Tip-off between the Yellowjacket men’s basketball team and Saint Martin’s is at 5:15 p.m., followed by the women’s game against the Cavaliers at 7:30 p.m. The men’s team (9-14, 6-9 GNAC) will look to win their third straight game and fourth in their last five overall on Saturday against the Nanooks (16-6, 10-4 GNAC). Live video with play-by-play commentary and statistics for both games will be available through MSUB's Stretch Internet portal here. The women have won their last two games, including Thursday’s Think Pink game on ROOT SPORTS. After building a 155 lead in the first quarter, the ‘Jackets ended the game on a 13-5 run for a final score of 65-48 over Western Oregon. With their record of 12-3 in the conference, the ‘Jackets are third in the standings with five games remaining in the regular season. The top-6 teams in the GNAC advance to the conference tournament which will take place Mar. 3-5 in Lacey, Wash. Both Olson and Grimsrud are five-year members of the Yellowjacket program and have come a long way since they stepped onto the MSUB campus in 2011. Olson is a Billings native and graduated from West High School. Grimsrud is from Montana City and a graduate of Helena High School. Grimsrud has been a two-sport athlete for the Yellowjackets and played volleyball from 2011-14. After a tough volleyball campaign her junior season, Grimsrud made the decision to redshirt her next season of basketball to give her body the time to recover from several nagging injuries. After completing her volleyball eligibility in 2014, this year is the first time the 6-foot-1 forward has been able to take part in the basketball preseason and it shows. Grimsrud is averaging almost 10 more minutes per game on the floor for the ‘Jackets than last season and is just shy of contributing double-digits in points at 9.8. This year, she has accumulated 40 3-point shots - more than double any of her previous seasons, and is seventh in the GNAC in 3-point baskets made per game with 1.7. She is also 26th in scoring and 19th in assists (2.3 pg). With five regular season games left on the MSUB schedule, Grimsrud has amassed 564 career points and 374 rebounds. She is also six steals back from landing on the MSUB top-10 all-time list with 107. Olson’s journey at MSUB began with a bang. As a freshman, the defensive specialist started 28-29 games for the Yellowjackets. She had at least one rebound in every game, and she compiled 11 double-digit games. She finished the year averaging 8.2 rebounds per game Janiel Olson is No. 2 all-time in rebounds and No. 8 in steals at MSUB.
for almost double the next player on the team. Her sophomore campaign, she bumped her average up to 9.0 rebounds per game with another 10 games in double-figures. She also began to have a larger impact on the offense scoring 13 games above 10 points. Continuing her performance off the glass her third season with the Yellowjackets, Olson was leading the GNAC in rebounds and was ranked as high as 25th in the nation. She was named the 2013-14 GNAC Defensive Player of the Year and a First-Team All-Conference honoree. Heading down the stretch of the regular season Olson ran into a roadblock. With .6 seconds left on the clock during a game at Western Oregon, she ran down a ball at half-court and came down wrong on her left knee. The injury turned out to be a season-ending torn ACL and Olson had to begin the recovery back to the court. Forced to sit out the last three regular-season games as well as the program’s run in the NCAA tournament culminating with a finish at the Sweet 16 left a bitter taste in the junior’s mouth. Coming back the next season, Olson had to make a decision – watching her team from the bench compete in the NCAA tournament was hard, would she be able to sit the bench for a whole season while making a full recovery from her injury? Knowing she wouldn’t be able to join her team at 100 percent, Olson decided to redshirt the next year and wait to come back. Looking back on it now, she knows it was the right decision to make and the confidence of having that season to complete her rehab has been paying dividends on the court. Olson has worked her way back to second in the GNAC in rebounds with 8.5 per game. She is also averaging 7.1 points, and 1.5 steals per game. At 797 total points, she is just three back from reaching a career total of 800. During this season’s game against Alaska Anchorage at Alterowitz, Olson collected her 900th career rebound to become just the second woman in Yellowjacket history to attain that feat. She has amassed 926 total rebounds and is 31 back from tying the record (957, Robyn Milne, 2002-05). In the GNAC record books, Olson is No. 5 all-time, 26 behind the fourth-best. Olson is also No. 8 all-time in steals at MSUB. She has 166 to date, 16 behind No. 7 at MSUB. Both players have five games left in the regular season with Saturday’s game being the last to be played at Alterowitz this year. The next two weeks MSUB ends its regular-season campaign with four-straight road games. Following the game this Saturday, both women will be honored during a short Senior Night Ceremony.
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