MISSOULA — Second-year head coach Nate Harris and the Montana women’s basketball program have finalized the Lady Griz roster for the 2026-27 season.
Montana returns six players from Harris’ first season and committed four incoming freshmen during November’s early signing period.
The Lady Griz filled the remaining spots with a productive portal season in April and May, adding five transfers from successful college programs.
Joining Montana next month for summer workouts will be:
- Dominique (Dom) Nesland (Phoenix, Ariz. / High Point / Junior / 5-9 / Guard)
- Shay Shippen (Idaho Falls, Idaho / Columbia / RS Freshman / 5-11 / Guard)
- Paige Lofing (Huntley, Mont. / Gonzaga / Sophomore / 5-9 / Guard)
- Kennedy Moore (Kalispell, Mont. / Wake Forest / Junior / 6-2 / Forward)
- Alyssa Blanck (Salt Lake City, Utah / Utah / Redshirt Senior / 6-2 / Forward)
Returning from last year’s team will be rising seniors Kennedy Gillette and Aby Shubert, juniors Jocelyn Land and Avery Waddington, and sophomores Ava Cossette and Rae Ehrman.
Signing with Montana in November were:
- Avory DeCoite (Missoula, Mont. / Big Sky HS / 5-7 / Guard)
- Kate Holmquist (Maple Grove, Minn. / Maple Grove HS / 5-7 / Guard)
- Hayden Kaut (Napavine, Wash. / Napavine HS / 6-2 / Forward)
- Kamryn Reinker (Billings, Mont. / Billings Central Catholic HS / 5-11 / Guard)
“It’s a very obvious challenge when you have a nearly equal split with three different groups, but it’s also exciting. All three groups will challenge the others,” Harris said of his returners, his freshmen and his transfers.
“At the end of the day, it’s our job to make sure those groups become a very successful group as a whole, that they become a team.”
Montana went 9-22 last season and finished eighth in the Big Sky Conference with a 5-13 league record.
“To accomplish the things that are expected from Lady Griz basketball, we had to get longer and we had to get more athletic,” Harris said of his goal when diving into the transfer portal earlier this spring.
“We had to get more efficient offensively and we had to get more competitive and more aggressive on the defensive end. We had to answer those questions first. Is this somebody who pushes the envelope for us in terms of their effort, their athleticism, their length?”
Nesland, recruited years ago by the Lady Griz out of Phoenix’s Xavier College Prep, will arrive in Missoula after two successful seasons at High Point.
The Panthers won 21 games when Nesland was a freshman, 27 last winter. Both seasons ended with High Point playing in the NCAA Tournament.
“Dom is a winner, somebody who maybe lost 10 games in her high school career and has been to the NCAA Tournament her first two years of college basketball,” said Harris. “She will help us in a multitude of ways on the floor, then off the floor she is a grinder, someone who does the work and isn’t afraid to ask other people to come along with her.”
Nesland made the Big South all-freshman team in 2024-25 and was a two-time Big South freshman of the week when she averaged 5.5 points and 3.0 rebounds while totaling 50 assists.
Playing 26 minutes per game last season on a team that went 27-6, Nesland averaged 6.0 points and 4.9 rebounds per game. She totaled 107 assists over two seasons and had a 1.3 assist-to-turnover ratio.
“She is a hard-nosed, competitive, really aggressive player,” said Harris. “She is explosive downhill, physical defensively and a tremendous rebounder for her position.
“I’m most excited about the toughness and the edge and level of competitive spirit that she is going to add to our program. She’s going to make a big difference for us on the floor. I think she’ll have a chance to make an even bigger difference off of it.”
Shippen finished her high school career with an Idaho-record 2,372 career points but only played 31 minutes over six games in her one season at Columbia, shutting her season down early due to injury.
Like Nesland, Shippen was around plenty of success at her previous stop, with the Lions going 25-8 last season and rolling to the WBIT title, winning five WBIT games by an average of 23 points.
“She is a winner and super competitive and got to see how it works at the college level,” said Harris, who was part of a Lady Griz staff that also recruited Shippen out of Skyline High.
Her dad, Ty, played basketball at BYU and Alaska Anchorage. Her mom, Kaly, played at San Diego State and BYU. Shippen, four times first-team all-state, was the Idaho Gatorade player of the year as a senior.
She averaged 22.4 points and 9.9 rebounds for her high school career and is Skyline High’s career leader in points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks.
“She is a bucket. She just knows how to score the basketball. She can score at every level and does a lot of things well offensively,” said Harris. “She is a really high-IQ kid with parents who have both been coaches. You can tell she knows the game of basketball and how the game works. She does a lot of things really well.”
Lofing, the 2025 Montana Gatorade player of the year, requires little in the way of an introduction. Her play on the court at Huntley Project High School largely did that for her. Her most recent game on the home court of the Lady Griz, inside Dahlberg Arena, came when she led Huntley Project to the Class B state title as a senior.
Lofing spent one season at Gonzaga.
“We’re tickled to get a player the quality of Paige to come back to Montana,” said Harris. “She did just about everything you can do in a high school jersey. State title, state’s leading scorer, Gatorade player of the year. We’re excited to see what she can accomplish in a Lady Griz jersey.”
Lofing played in 27 of Gonzaga’s 34 games last season, averaging 2.2 points in 6.6 minutes of court time. She went 16 for 38 (.421) from the 3-point line.
The Bulldogs went 24-10, finished second by a game behind Loyola Marymount in the West Coast Conference and won the league tournament to advance to the NCAA Tournament.
“She is incredibly talented in lots of different ways,” said Harris. “She has a really, really high talent level and a really, really high skill level. There is not much she can’t do on a basketball floor.
“She has all the skills needed to be a really, really high-level basketball player. The sky really is the limit for her.”
Moore prepped at Flathead High, which she helped lead to the Class AA state championship game as a junior. As a senior she averaged 14.8 points and 9.7 rebounds.
“We watched her a ton and really liked her,” said Harris. “She was one of those kids who had such high potential. She really blossomed late and Wake (Forest) swept in an took her off the market.”
Moore spent two years in North Carolina playing for the Demon Deacons. She played in 20 games as a freshman, averaging 2.0 rebounds and 1.1 points per game. She started 10 games as a sophomore on Wake’s WNIT team, averaging 2.8 points and 2.5 rebounds.
“If you start games in the ACC, you’re the real deal,” said Harris. “Excited to have her come home to Montana and use those talents to make the Lady Griz better.
“I fully expect her to be one of the most athletic players in the Big Sky, with her combination of length, speed and jumping ability. She is going to impact the game on both ends because of her athletic ability.”
Blanck, the KSL-TV Utah Class 5A MVP as a senior at Olympus High, spent the 2022-23 season at BYU in the Cougars’ final year as a member of the West Coast Conference. She sat out the season as a redshirt.
She spent the last three years at Utah, going to the NCAA Tournament in 2024 and ’25, and the WBIT this past season. Blanck played in 23 games over three seasons, totaling 52 minutes, 14 points and 22 rebounds.
“She had a tremendous high school career but never really found the floor in college,” said Harris. “It was an uphill climb. When you’re at Utah at the same time as Alissa Pili and Gianna Kneepkens, it gets harder to hit the floor.”
She was coached at Utah by former Lady Griz Jordan (Sullivan) MacIntyre and Jace Henderson. She hit her only shot of the game, a 3-pointer off the bench, when Utah won at Montana last season.
“She is excited to compete and has the talent to have a role on a really good team,” said Harris. “We’re excited about her ability to shoot it, along with her length. We think she is somebody who can make an impact in the Big Sky.”
Montana’s 2026-27 team will be together for the first time in the middle of June, when the Lady Griz report to Missoula for summer workouts.
“I think all five (of these transfers) could have been the best player on most Big Sky teams and we have them all on the same team,” said Harris.
