MSU Moorhead 61 Wayne State 57
Wayne State College shot a season-low 30.4 percent from the field (21 of 69) in a 61-57 loss at MSU Moorhead in Northern Sun Conference women's basketball Friday evening in Moorhead, Minnesota. With the loss, the Wildcats fall into a second place tie in the NSIC with the University of Mary at 11-6 in the league and 18-8 overall while MSU Moorhead moves into a tie for fourth place in the league standings with Winona State at 10-7 and improve to 16-10 overall.
Coming off a season-high 57.7 percent (30 of 52) shooting effort last Saturday in a 84-67 road win at Southwest Minnesota State, the Wildcats struggled to find the basket Friday evening in Moorhead but still had a chance to win the game by forcing the Dragons into 22 turnovers in the contest.
MSU Moorhead jumped out to a quick 9-2 lead in the opening four minutes of the contest. But WSC responded with a 9-2 run of their own to tie the score at 11-11 with 12:05 to go in the first half. The two teams then exchanged nine leads to go with two ties and WSC held a slim 33-32 lead at halftime.
The Dragons opened the second half by scoring the first six points to take the biggest lead of the second half for either team at 38-33 with 16:18 remaining. The game stayed close throughout but WSC went scoreless over a 4:50 stretch toward the end of the game that cost the Wildcats.
A Teresa Case three-pointer for Wayne State with 4:52 remaining forced the game's eighth tie at 55-55. Despite forcing three turnovers over the next two minutes, the Wildcats could not capitalize and MSU Moorhead's Katie Walden made two free throws with 2:31 remaining to give the Dragons a 57-55 lead. The Wildcats missed three more shots plus a free throw that could have tied or taken the lead, but Walden hit two more free throws with 19 seconds left to give MSUM a 59-55 advantage. A Wildcat turnover resulted in two more free throws by Walden with nine seconds remaining for the Dragons to take a 61-55 lead. Case then made a layup as the final horn sounded to make the final score 61-57.
Andrea Schoepf scored a game-high 18 points to lead Wayne State in a losing effort. Kylee McGill added 11 points for the Wildcats, who hit just 4 of 15 shots from the three point line and was 11 of 18 at the free throw stripe in the loss.
Katie Walden paced the Dragons in scoring with 17 points followed by Chris Falzon and Jessica Fesenmaier with 10 points apiece. MSUM made 20 of 48 shots from the field for 41.7 percent. The Dragons connected on 5 of 11 shots from the three point line and 16 of 20 at the charity stripe.
MSU Moorhead held a 46-36 advantage in rebounding over Wayne State as Fesenmaier, Allison Swenson and Walden each hauled in eight boards to lead the Dragons while sophomore guard Teresa Case grabbed a career-high 11 caroms to pace the Wildcats on the boards.
Wayne State will close out the regular season Saturday evening with a visit to 5th-ranked Concordia-St. Paul for a 6:00 p.m. contest.
