Duluth, Minn.- The No. 11 University of Minnesota Duluth women's basketball team sealed a successful regular season with an 84-62 victory against Bemidji State on a Senior Night Saturday in Romano. The win allows UMD to head into postseason play with a 24-3 overall record. The Bulldogs' NSIC-winning 21-1 conference standing will serve them well come tournament time next week.
The first quarter was certainly a back-and-forth affair, one that saw the score knotted up a total of four times. When a squad really found a way to break through, though, it was typically BSU. The Beavers enjoyed the game's first two-possession lead at 7-2, for example, a Sam Pogatchnik layup doing the honors at the 6:55 mark. UMD was able to answer back with a 5-0 run capped off by an Ella Gilbertson bucket to leave things even at 7-7 with 5:45 left in the frame. This would spark a period of essential stalemate that would last until the game was tied at 13 a pop with 1:45 on the clock. It's here that BSU properly responded to UMD's earlier 5-0 stretch with five unanswered points of its own in the span of exactly a minute, an Alyssa Hill layup leaving the score at 18-13 with 45 ticks left until quarter two. The Bulldogs would do good work to trim the lead back down to just three, but that'd be the extent of it. The score read 19-16 BSU after 10 minutes.
That Pogatchnik name is inherently one that's hard to forget- but her play through one quarter made it even more difficult. The sophomore guard already had 11 points on 3-4 shooting by this point. On the other end, it was Brooke Olson leading the offensive charge for the Bulldogs with seven points on a 3-6 shooting mark.
It didn't take all too long for UMD to be able to even the score up once more, a Taya Hakamaki two-pointer leaving things at 25 apiece with 7:28 until the break. Unfortunately for the Bulldogs, history repeated itself- louder this time, actually. Less than two minutes later, Trinity Yoder was at the line to put the finishing touches on what had suddenly become a game-high seven-point Bemidji lead at 32-25. But much as they'd done back at 18-13, the Bulldogs just kept battling. Though it took some time, UMD was ultimately rewarded for those efforts. With 1:48 until halftime, Kaylee Nelson put home a triple to make it 36-36. It was an 11-4 Bulldog run. With 23 ticks remaining in the half, Hakamaki made it 14-4. Just like that, UMD was walking into the break with a hard-earned 39-36 lead.
Olson had herself quite a second quarter. The graduate forward potted 10 more points across 10 minutes to sit with 17 total tallies by halftime. And she did it all on 7-11 shooting from the field, to boot. Hakamaki had also had an impactful second frame, scoring eight points to leave her 20-minute total at 10 on 4-5 shooting overall.
All-told, the Bulldogs' comeback bid throughout quarter number two had been an efficient one. The team shot 9-12 overall from the field and 3-4 from three-point land.
The story of the third quarter for UMD: establishing touchstones.
At the 8:20 mark, Olson drained a pair of free throws to push the Bulldogs' lead to two scores at 45-39. At two possessions UMD's lead would stay the rest of the way. And with 3:35 left in the frame when Gilbertson connected on two free throws of her own to leave the score at 53-43? You know what's coming- double-digit Bulldog lead until the final buzzer from that point onwards. Another point of reference was soon to follow when UMD would go on to push its lead to as high as 14, last at a score of 59-45 with 44 ticks until the final frame. Ultimately, though, the Bulldogs' lead would settle at 12 by the end of quarter number three, the score reading 59-47. Must have been something about that 12 number through these ten minutes- that's exactly how many more points Olson added to her tally in the quarter. This brings us to our final touchstone- by this point in the game, Olson sat at exactly 29 total points. Her career high, which she set earlier this season back on Jan. 21, was 35.
With 5:52 to go in the game, Olson sank a bucket through contact to generate an and-one opportunity. The graduate forward would go on to complete the three-point play at the stripe. Would usually be pretty innocuous for a player of Olson's caliber, if not for the fact that before she had made the initial shot at all, she already had 35 points to her name. Olson left the line with a brand new career high of 37 points under her belt- and time left to work with to push it even further.
But first, another landmark moment- Olson's effort had left the score at 70-50 UMD. Say it with us: the Bulldogs' lead would stay at 20+ from this point on.
But it's right back to Olson Watch- and it's a good thing to have tuned back in so quickly. With exactly four minutes left on the clock, the graduate forward did the only natural thing she could have done to put a lid on a career night: sink a three to push the lead to 26 at 78-52. Forty points- it's quite a lot. The highest ever scored in a single game in program history was 44 by the legendary Dina Kangas. Olson wouldn't quite hit that mark, but a 40-burger is no small consolation. On Senior Night, no less.
As for the rest of the game, everything came up aces for UMD. Lexi Large sank a bucket that pushed the Bulldogs' lead back to game-high of 26 at 82-56 with just 2:14 remaining. UMD's advantage would ultimately settle at 22, the final score being 84-62 Bulldogs.
It'd taken Olson 11 more points throughout the final 10 minutes of this one to reach the 40-point plateau, something she did on 4-6 shooting. Hers was just one of a sea of efforts that helped UMD to a 9-14 shooting mark in the final frame, a 3-5 tally from deep.
And it was 23 that had been the magic number for Olson across the second half, those points coming on an overall mark of 9-15 from the field. This was part of a 16-31 shooting operation for the Bulldogs through 20 minutes.
When it comes to the game at-large… you know who led the way in points. Olson's 40 total tallies came through a whopping 16-26 shooting mark. The graduate forward paired those points with five rebounds. And it's only fitting that Olson would land at a tie in that latter figure with her fellow senior day honoree- Maesyn Thiesen. It was nothing short of a prototypical performance from the graduate guard, as she coupled those boards with eight points on 3-6 shooting from the field. Thiesen also tallied an assist in this one which, funny enough, ended up in the hands of Olson.
To close out the story of UMD's scoring, two more Bulldogs finished in double-figures. Hakamaki had 12 on a 4-7 effort overall and a 2-3 mark from deep. Gilbertson ends the list with 11 points. One more important footnote: as a team, UMD went 31-57 from the field in this one and 6-13 from deep. Well, maybe two more footnotes: the Bulldogs also closed a perfect 16-16 from the line.
The Beavers were led by Yoder, who scored 20 points to go along with a well-rounded statline of eight rebounds, five assists and three steals. Hill had 19 points on 8-11 shooting to go with five boards. Pogatchnik was the last of BSU's double-digit scorers with 15 points that she coupled with five boards of her own.
UP NEXT
For its efforts across the regular season, UMD secured a First Round bye in the NSIC Tournament. Whoever makes it out of the contest between four-seed Concordia-St. Paul and five-seed MSU Moorhead on Wednesday, Feb. 22 will go on to play the Bulldogs on Sunday, Feb. 26 at 11:00 a.m. That game will take place in the Sanford Pentagon, as will all matchups past the first round.
