Box Score

ABERDEEN, S.D. – The Northern State University Wolves pulled off the trifecta on Wednesday night, knocking off the Minnesota State University Moorhead Dragons for the third time this season, escaping with a 65-56 victory in the quarterfinals of the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference/Sanford Health Women's Basketball Tournament.

With the win, the second-seeded Wolves moved to 20-7 on the season and advance to the semifinal round of the tournament.  NSU will face third-seeded Concordia-St. Paul on Friday at 5 p.m. in the second of the two semifinal games.  All semifinal and championship round contests will be played in the Gangelhoff Center on the campus of Concordia-St. Paul.

The Wolves, who reached the 20-win plateau for the first time since the 2006-07 season, held MSU Moorhead to just 28.6 percent shooting on the night, including a 23.8 percent effort from long range.  The Dragons, however, despite facing a 20-point deficit early in the second half, did not let the Wolves slip away easily.  

MSUM used a 4-and-a-half-minute NSU dry spell in which the Wolves scored just two points to whittle the deficit to single digits by the 10:29 mark and trailed by just four at 51-47 with 6:54 left to go.

NSU seniors Jodi Reinschmidt and Krista Rabenberg then took over for the Wolves, as Reinschmidt hit a fade-away jumper in the lane and Rabenberg followed with a conventional 3-point play to put the Wolves back up by nine.

After a pair of Haley Thomforde free throws, Rabenberg added another layup off a wide-open lob pass from Brittany Euerle and the Wolves made just enough free throws in the final four minutes to stay out of the Dragons' reach.

Reinschmidt and Rabenberg scored 20 and 18 points, respectively, to lead the way for the Wolves.  Freshman Alison Kusler added nine points, including a pair of big three-pointers in the first half.  Reinschmidt also had 10 rebounds for the Wolves, who were badly outrebounded by the Dragons 51-32.

MSUM got a pair of double-double efforts from starters Betsy Dickson and Angie Jetvig.  Dickson put up 11 points and a game-best 12 rebounds, while Jetvig added 13 points and snagged 10 rebounds, but went just 5-for-17 from the floor and 0-for-6 from 3-point range.  Freshman Haley Thomforde also had 13 points on the strength of a trio of three-pointers during the Dragons' second-half run.  Morgan Zabel finished the night with 11 points and seven boards.

The Dragons pulled down 21 of their 51 total rebounds on the offensive end of the court.  All but one of the ten players to see the court notched at least one offensive board.  The Wolves, however, controlled the inside game, scoring 26 points in the paint to just 16 for the Dragons.