BOX SCORE
ABERDEEN S.D.- After trailing most of the first half, the ninth ranked Wayne State women's basketball team took the lead with eight and half minutes left in the second half and never looked back, defeating the Northern State women's basketball team 61-54 Saturday night in Northern Sun Intercollegiate action at Wachs arena in Aberdeen.
WSU improves to 21-2 overall and 18-1 in the NSIC; NSU moves to 16-7 and 13-6 in the NSIC. Tonight's win moves Wayne State's win streak over the Wolves to seven including a sweep on the season.
While Northern State's defense held Ashley Arlen scoreless in the first half, the Wolves could not stop her in the second half as she scored a game-high 19 points in just 20 minutes. Five of those points included a jumper with 9:23 in the game to cut Northern's lead to just one point and a three, just under a minute later, that gave the Wildcats a 42-40 lead. The Wildcats never trailed the rest of the game.
NSU fought to regain the lead with a three-point make from Emily Becken at 6:55, followed by a pair of free-throws a minute later to cut WSC's lead to four.
Mara Hjelle hit a jumper 20 seconds later to move the Wildcats' lead to six at 48-42 before Alison Kusler hit a step-back three from the top of the key at 4:44 to make it a single possession contest. Krista Rabenberg followed Kusler's three under a minute later nailing a turnaround jumper in the paint to cut Wayne State's lead to just a point.
Arlen answered NSU's run with her own converting a three-point play at the three and a half minute mark and hitting another jumper at 2:50 to give WSC a 53-49 lead.
Becken contributed five points in the final 30 seconds of the game including a long-range trey with three seconds left, but it wasn't enough to overcome the deficit. She finished with a team-high 14 points while dishing out three assists and pulling down six rebounds.
Krista Rabenberg had her second consecutive double-double finishing with 13 points and 11 boards while Jodi Reinschmidt added 11 points and six rebounds.
Northern State and Wayne State sat tied at eight after five minutes of play in the first half, and in that time Reinschmidt found Brittany Euerle on a back door cut for a jumper at the 18:15 mark. 45 seconds later the duo connected again with Reinschmidt nailing the shot on a dish from Euerle.
Northern gained its largest lead of the game at 10 when Becken hit a three at 9:14 to make the score 20-10.
WSC answered back with a jumper form Alyssa Fischbach at 8:58 followed by back-to-back three pointers from Clare Duwelius with under seven minutes left in the half to take the score to 21-18, Wolves.
Euerle nailed her first three of the season with just under two minutes left in the half to give NSU a 26-24 lead which the team carried into the break.
NSU was led at the break by Reinschmidt who shot 4-8 from the field scoring nine points. Euerle followed close behind with seven points.
The Wolves will travel to St. Cloud State and Concordia-St. Paul next weekend. Games are slated for 6 p.m. and 4 p.m., respectively.
