Bison men head east to Wisconsin
Written by Daniel Gunderson Friday, 11 December 2009 08:00
The Thundering Herd traveled to Macomb, Ill,. on Monday, seeking its second straight conference victory. They came away with a 57-31 victory over Western Illinois University due to their stifling “D” and timely shooting.
For the second straight game, NDSU’s opponent scored the opening bucket. Also, for the second straight night, the Bison responded with a strong run. In this game, it was an 8-0 that had several different contributors. NDSU would continue to increase the lead with a 10-3 run later in the half, and with 9:43 left they were up 18-7.
The Leathernecks did not give up and had the lead down to seven with under a minute to go. A three pointer from senior Inger Hodgson, one of her four made shots in the half, pushed the lead back to 10, 28-18, right before the end of the half.
The biggest reason for the Bison’s success in the first half was its ability to get points in the paint. They outscored WIU 20-2 in that category. For the Necks, it would not get any better in any aspect as the second half started.
For all intensive purposes, NDSU put away the game when they started out the second half on a 13-0 run. Hodgson assisted on three of the six makes in this stretch and the Bison pushed its lead up to 41-18. Again, WIU would bring the lead down, this time to 15, but the Herd would respond with another devastating run. With the score at 41-26, NDSU went on a 16-0 run to make it 57-26 with 3:44 remaining. These would be the last points the Bison would score all night. The Leathernecks would add a couple more baskets to end the game.
NDSU would add another 20 points in the paint in the second half to run their total up to 40 on the night compared to only six by WIU.
The Bison defense also forced 20 turnovers, accounted for 31 of their 46 rebounds and held the Leathernecks to 22.4 percent shooting from the field, including 5-23 from the land of three.
The Bison were led by Hodgson and junior Whitney Trecker’s 11 points, while sophomore Katie Birkel added 10 of her own. Senior Jill Zaruba, sophomore Abby Plucker, Hodgson and Trecker all had six rebounds to lead the Bison in that category.
The 31 points ties the lowest total points allowed in the Summit League in four years. It happened twice before this, both times to WIU. NDSU will now go on the road to play New Mexico State on Saturday and Utah State on Monday. Both teams are a part of the Western Athletic Conference.
