Box Score Northern State 77 Wayne State 53

            The Wayne State College women's basketball team could never recover from a 15-0 deficit to start the game as the cold-shooting Wildcats fell 77-53 Saturday afternoon at Northern State in Aberdeen, South Dakota in the season opener for both teams.
            Northern State scored the first 15 points of the contest and held a 19-8 lead after one quarter as WSC connected on just 3 of 16 shots in the opening quarter.
            The second quarter wasn't any better as the Wildcats connected on just 2 of 16 shots and were out-scored by the host Wolves 21-5 to trail 40-13 at intermission.
            The Wildcat offense came to life in the second half as WSC outscored NSU 20-13 in the third quarter to cut the deficit to 53-33 entering the fourth quarter.
            WSC got as close as 14 at 62-48 following an Ashley Gustavson 3-pointer with 3:16 to play, but Northern State responded scoring eight of the next 10 points to push the lead back to 20 points and the Wolves finished with a 77-53 win.
            Senior center Brittany Bongartz scored 15 points to lead Wayne State followed by Erin Norling with 14 points and 10 rebounds.
            Wayne State made just 17 of 62 shots for the game (27.4 percent) and was just 3 for 26 (11.5%) from the 3-point line.  The 'Cats were 16 of 24 (66.7%) from the free throw line.
            Lexi Wadsworth led Northern State with a game-high 21 points followed by Kailee Oliverson with 17 points. 
            Northern State shot 49.2 percent from the field on 29 of 59 that included 7 of 13 behind the arc for 53.8 percent.  The Wolves were 12 of 15 (80%) at the free throw line.
            WSC held a 17-10 advantage in points off turnovers after forcing 21 Northern State miscues.  NSU won the points in the paint battle (32-24) and bench points (28-11).
            Northern State held a sizeable 42-31 advantage in rebounding over the Wildcats.  Norling hauled in 10 boards for WSC followed by Bongartz with eight.
            Wayne State plays at Northern State again Sunday afternoon at 4 p.m. in Aberdeen, South Dakota.