The North Dakota State Bison women’s basketball team hosted the Omaha Mavericks this past Wednesday at the SHAC. The Bison have started on a good note so far to start the Summit League, going 3-2 to start league play, but fell to the Mavericks 80-60.
The Bison fell behind early in the first quarter and could not catch up. NDSU shot just 4-17 from the field and 0-7 behind the arc, compared to Omaha shooting 8-18 and 3-8. The score was tied just once, at 2-2 before Omaha took control.
Both teams shot the ball well in the second quarter. With the Bison shooting 54 percent in the quarter and 11-30 and 1-10 for the whole half. The Mavericks went 45 percent in the quarter and a total of 15-34 and 7-17 for the half. With Omaha outscoring the Bison 21-18 in the quarter, they took a 40-28 lead into the locker room.
The Mavericks caught on fire to start the second half as the shot 59 percent for the third quarter, 10-17, 3-7 and 4-4, compared to the Bison’s 24 percent, 4-17, 2-10 and 0-0. With a 27-10 third quarter, the fourth quarter started with a score of 67-38.
In the fourth and final quarter, the Bison went 54 percent from the floor shooting 7-13 and 2-4 to finish the game with 37 percent from the floor and 21 percent from three. The Mavericks shot 31 percent go 4-13 and 1-6 to finish the game 45 percent and 38 from three.
Freshman Anna Goodhope lead the team with 15 points on 6-8 shooting, including 3-4 from downtown. Omaha’s Michaela Dapprich shot 8-13, 5-8 from beyond the arc, for a game high 21 points.
NDSU then took a weekend road trip to Indianapolis to take on the IUPUI Jaguars. The Bison tried to stop their two-game losing streak and be back over .500 in the Summit League play.
After being down 29-14, the Bison made a run going in to the half and only being down 21-34. The Bison took the lead 40-39 in the third after Taylor Thunstedt made a pair of free throws with 5:55 left in the third. IUPUI would retake the lead with after a three from Sydney Hall just 15 seconds later.
The Bison answered back with a three of their own from Goodhope with 5:10 left in the quarter. The teams went back and forth until 3:13 left in the third when the Jaguars went on a 6-0 run to take the lead in to the fourth with a score of 52-46.
IUPUI held off the Bison with the final score of 71-58. The Jaguars shot 51 percent from the floor and 42 from three-point land. The Bison shot 42 from the floor and 46 from deep. NDSU gave up 20 turnovers, which led to 27 points for IUPUI.
NDSU freshman Reilly Jacobson, who is seeing her first extended action in her second coming back from a shoulder injury, and Thundstedt each scored 15 points. Brianna Jones recorded her team leading fourth double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds.
IUPUI’s Danielle Lawrence scored 27 points to lead the game with her 8-16 shooting, 3-10 from three.
With the back-to-back loss, the Bison fall to a record of 5-15 overall and 3-4 in the Summit. They look to get things turned around Thursday as they travel to Vermillion, South Dakota, to take on the Coyotes.