FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Havre native Loree Payne became the winningest coach in Northern Arizona women's basketball history on Saturday.
Payne guided the Lumberjacks to a 92-83 win over San Francisco at the Rolle Activity Center, giving the head coach her 118th career win at NAU. The Jacks are 9-2 this season and have won eight of their past nine games for the best start in program history.
Against San Francisco, six Lumberjacks scored in double figures, led by Nyah Moran with 18.
Payne has been NAU's head coach since April of 2017 and has compiled a 118-110 overall record in her seven-plus seasons. The Lumberjacks went 25-10 last season, setting the program's single-season wins record, and reached the championship game of the Big Sky Conference tournament for the third consecutive season.
Northern Arizona was picked to win the Big Sky this season by both the coaches and media in the preseason polls.
Payne, a 2009 inductee into the Montana High School Association Hall of Fame, scored 2,299 career points at Havre, where she played from 1995-1998.
She then became a decorated player at the University of Washington, where she was a two-time first-team all-conference selection. Payne finished her UW career as the seventh-leading scorer in program history with 1,675 career points.
Payne's coaching career began with stints at Northwest Nazarene, Portland and Washington as an assistant before becoming the head coach at Puget Sound. She compiled a 130-58 overall record at Puget Sound and was a two-time Northwest Conference coach of the year during her tenure from 2010-17.
