Women’s starters score double digits
After a big night by the Bison bench last Tuesday, the starters took back the scoring load Saturday night.
All five starters hit double figures for NDSU as they won a hard-fought game over fellow Division I Independent, Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne, 79-68.
“ When you play good competition, you need everybody putting some points on the board and you can’t rely on one or two people,” head coach Amy Ruley said.
The Bison received big contributions early on from Brandee Gibbs, who recorded her third double-double of the season with 14 points and 10 rebounds. Gibbs scored nine points in a four-minute stretch of a first half where she was perfect from the field.
“ We try to go into the post early in the game to see how they react and they were giving it to us,” Gibbs said.
Gibbs also added six blocks on the defensive end.
Lisa Bue led the Bison with 15 points and grabbed six rebounds. Danni Heintzelman chipped in 12 points, all of them coming from the free-throw line.
The Mastadons were led by junior guard Ashley Johnson who had 23 points in the losing effort for what was a talented, quick IPFW team.
“ We knew that they were a better team than their record indicated. I knew it wasn’t going to be a walk in the park and that we would have to play hard,” Ruley said.
IPFW fell to 2-15 on the season while the Bison inched closer to .500, improving to 8-9.
Kayla Dahlen and Katie Lorenz each added 10 points for the Bison. Lorenz also had nine assists to lead the Bison in that category.
An even more important number for the Bison was the 11 turnovers the team had. Before this game, NDSU was averaging 17 per game.
“ The coaches commented on our 11 turnovers compared to 31 against San Jose (San José State University),” Lorenz said. “We need to be smart with the ball and good things will happen.”
The Bison bench did not come close to their 52-point effort against Valley City State on Tuesday, but they did have a good contribution.
“ Ali (Sonstelie) did some good things in the second half,” Ruley said. “Jerri Penley came in and gave us a physical presence on the block when we got into foul trouble.”
The Bison are off until Thursday when they take on the Minnesota Golden Gophers at Williams Arena in Minneapolis. The next home action for the Bison will be Saturday against Texas A&M Corpus Christi.