Lady Dogs Fall to Huskies

NSO – NEWS RELEASE

An early second-half run by St. Cloud State University proved the different as the University of Minnesota dropped its Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference opener 81-67 at Hallenbeck Hall in St. Cloud on Saturday afternoon.

UMD (2-3, 0-1 NSIC) opens league play with a tough defeat but won’t have long to wait for a rematch as SCSU (4-0, 1-0 NSIC, RV) comes to Duluth in just three short weeks to close the first half of the season on Dec. 20.

TOP SCORERS
• Senior guard Danielle Flood led all scorers with 22 points, shooting 8-of-17 on the night. Junior forward Taylor Meyer scored 12 points and added 12 rebounds for ad ouble-double, while senior guard Jessica Newman added 10 points and five rebounds for UMD.
• Karissa LeCaptain dropped 20 points, 9-of-14 from the floor, with Lexy Peterman (14), Carley Jeffery (14), and Betsy MacDonald (13) also hitting double-digits scoring for St. Cloud. Petermann and Nichole Wittman each had 10 rebounds for the Huskies.

Newman scored the first five points for the Bulldogs, opening the scoring in the game with a jumper and tying it at 5-5 after the Huskies took the lead. The two teams traded scores through the opening quarter of the game, tied at 17-all as the clock ticked across the 10-minute mark of the opening frame. St. Cloud continued to shoot well from beyond the arc, and took a 29-25 lead at the next media timeout as both teams continued to run up and down the court. UMD bounced back and would tie the score again at 34-34 on another three by Newman, but after hitting their seventh three of the half, the Huskies would take a 37-36 lead to the locker room.

The Huskies expanded that lead, outscoring UMD 14-7 out of the locker room to lead 51-43. UMD trimmed the lead to four, but again St. Cloud turned to LeCaptain as she put the Huskies back up 57-47. The Bulldogs went on a run of their own, scoring the next four points as SCSU finally missed a pair of three-pointers, but the Huskies were able to keep the Bulldogs at bay. St. Cloud frustrated UMD defensively, scoring 15 points off 17 turnovers. The two teams shot nearly identically overall (43.1 percent to 40.7 percent), but the Huskies sunk 10-of-28 threes compared to just a 4-of-17 game beyond the arc for the Bulldogs.

UP NEXT
UMD continues NSIC play on the road as the calendar turns to December, traveling to the University of Minnesota-Crookston and Bemidji State University next weekend. The Bulldogs and Golden Eagles will tip off the month Friday at 6:00 p.m.