Sophomore forward Katie Stark scored the club's first five points of the night and finished with a career-high 16 points in the University of Minnesota Duluth's 66-61 victory over Bemidji State University on Saturday. Stark gave the Beaver defense fits all night as she went to the foul line multiple times throughout the night and hit 11 of her 12 attempts from the charity stripe to push the Bulldogs to 9-4 and 6-3 in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference. Bemidji State, who dropped its third straight contest, sits at 4-9 and 3-6 in the NSIC.

UMD, who took the season series in the five-point victory, improved to 66-17 over the Beavers and stayed unbeaten at Romano Gymnasium. The Bulldogs are 6-0 in the friendly confines of Romano and have come out victorious in their last seven contests at home dating back to last season's NSIC opening round matchup with Minnesota State University, Mankato.

The defense has been a focal point to the success this season and UMD held its opponent under 40 percent shooting for the second consecutive night and eighth time this season. It has not lost a game this season (8-0) when the opposition hit less than 43 percent of its shot from the field. The stellar defensive play has the Bulldogs playing with the lead in all but four games and is 9-0 when leading with under five minutes to play. 

BSU was sluggish in the first quarter and paid the price. The Beavers hit the opening shot of the game then proceeded to make one other field goal as they scored five points in the opening 10 minutes, which was a season-low allowed by the maroon-and-gold. The Bulldogs held their biggest lead of 14 on a baseline jump shot by freshman Sarah Grow to open the second quarter. The Beavers would retaliate with a 11-2 run to make it 24-23 Bulldogs before freshman guard Ann Simonet hit a three to close the half and give UMD a four-point cushion heading to the half.

The third quarter was a back-and-forth battle with the lead changing six times.  Mikayla Larson had eight of her game-high 18 points in the quarter for BSU. UMD went a different route and had seven different players register a basket. However, it was Stark and junior guard Sammy Kozlowski who stole the show in the fourth. Stark made all eight free throw attempts and Kozlowski had seven fourth quarter points as the duo combined for 15 of the team's 22 points in the final 10 minutes.

UMD took the lead for good a minute into the fourth quarter on a three by Simonet. Junior forward Emma Boehm put the game out of reach and a no-look dish through the double team to Grow for an uncontested layup with two minutes to go. Boehm had two of her career high five assists in the fourth quarter.

The Bulldogs gets back on the road next weekend and travels to play Winona State University on Jan. 12 at 6 p.m. and Upper Iowa University on Jan. 13 at 4 p.m.