The University of Minnesota Duluth women's basketball team went on the road in the first round of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Tournament as the No. 8 seed in the Central Region, shutting down the No. 1-seeded Minnesota State University Mankato in 72-63 fashion.
40 points in the paint and 45 rebounds (nine offensive) to Minnesota State Mankato's 27 are just some of the big highlights that kept the game rolling in favor of the Bulldogs.
Lexi Karge (16),
Claire Bjorge (15), and
Ashley Fritz (10) led the scoring effort for UMD with a combined 41 points between the trio. Fritz also led the team with a game-changing four steals.
Minnesota State Mankato broke out to a 4-0 lead in the first minute of the match. A determined six-point effort by Karge brought the Bulldogs back within two points at 8-6 with 7:14 to go in the first quarter. Bjorge (2),
Karly Jusczak (2), and Fritz (2) combined for a 6-3 scoring run to bring UMD's first lead of the match at 12-11. The Mavericks reclaimed the lead after but were unable to hold off the Bulldogs, falling behind 18-15 by the end of the quarter.
UMD picked right up where they left off, firing to a 24-17 lead in the first two minutes with Karge leading the effort with four points. A 9-3 scoring effort by MSU forced the UMD lead down to one at 27-26 before
Vanessa Bickford and
Myra Moorjani silenced the effort with a 31-26 score by the three-minute mark. However, the Mavericks' accuracy picked up on a 9-2 run to head into halftime with the lead at 35-33.
MSU held off UMD for the first four minutes on an 11-6 scoring run, holding a seven-point lead at 46-39. Jusczak (4),
Grace Counts (3), Karge (2), and Bjorge (2) combined for an unanswered 12 points to force a 51-46 lead over the Mavericks with a minute to go in the third quarter. After Bjorge's layup, Fritz stole the ball and broke loose to hold a 55-48 lead into the final 10 minutes.
Maria Counts led the first five minutes of scoring for UMD with six points to hold a 62-57 lead with 5:22 remaining. The final five minutes saw the Bulldogs advance to a 72-63 lead, holding the nation's top scoring offense to six points in the final minutes.
Defensively, the Bulldogs held the top scoring offense in the nation to a total of 63 points. Heading into the matchup, the Mavericks were on track to average 92.1 points per game. MSU was also the second in the nation for forcing turnovers with 32.7 per game, but was only able to force 14 steals during the match and 25 turnovers.
The Bulldogs now await their opponent in tomorrow's NCAA Tournament Central Region Second Round, which will be decided after the first-round matchup between the University of Central Missouri and Washburn University tonight.
