Women's Basketball | 11.4.21
BROOKINGS, S.D. - Concordia-St. Paul played its final exhibition tune-up, falling 71-46 on the road to Division I program South Dakota State at Frost Arena on Thursday evening.
Concordia will open the regular season at home on Tuesday, November 16 with a 6 p.m. non-conference tip against North Central University at Gangelhoff Center.
The Jackrabbits started fast, sprinting out to a 12-2 lead in the first five minutes of play en route to a 21-6 first quarter advantage.
Concordia showed signs of momentum early in the second quarter, with freshman
Lindsey Becher scoring on a layup on a pass from freshman
Sarah Kuma five seconds into the quarter.
A minute later, following one of senior
Riley Wheatcraft's four steals, junior
Meghan DuBois found junior
Sydney Schultz for another lay-in as CSP scored the first four points of the quarter in just over a minute of action to trim the score to 21-10. It was one of DuBois' five assists in the game, adding three steals.
But in between the two layups, Becher would head to the bench with her third foul after a strong eight minute run in which she scored six points on 3-of-3 shooting with four rebounds.
She finished with a team-high 11 points on 5-8 shooting, adding five rebounds and did not foul out.
SCSU capitalized on Becher's absence, stifling the Golden Bears over the next 8-minutes and 36-seconds, but the Concordia defense stepped up, limiting the damage as SDSU went on a 12-0 run.
Concordia snapped the drought when Wheatcraft buried the team's first three-pointer of the night with 20 seconds to go in the half. The three-pointer was the team's fifth field goal of the game, and prior to it, Schultz was the only other Golden Bear to convert from the floor in the half.
Aside from Becher, Concordia was 2-for-22 from the field in the half and 1-for-9 from three-point distance. The Jackrabbits also used a 14-6 turnover advantage to create a 14-2 margin in points off turnovers.
The defense was the story in the first half, as Concordia limited host SDSU to the same three-point shooting (1-9) and just 32.4 (12-37) percent shooting from the field overall.
But the first four points and the last three points combined with strong defense kept the quarter as close as CSP could expect given an 8:36 scoreless drought, being outscored just 12-7.
From Wheatcraft's three-pointer until the final horn, Concordia kept things within reach, at one point late in the fourth quarter, CSP was outscoring SDSU 32-28 including the Wheatcraft three-pointer and the 18-18 third quarter deadlock.
In the 18-18 third quarter, Concordia turned it around offensively, knocking down 3-6 from the arc and shooting 40 percent (6-15) from the field. Additionally, Concordia took care of the ball and started forcing SDSU mistakes, committing just two turnovers while forcing seven leading to a 7-0 edge in points off turnovers.
In the final tally, the turnover margin evened out, with CSP committing 18 to SDSU's 15 with a 16-13 scoring margin in favor of SDSU.
Concordia held the Jackrabbits to 40 percent (26-65) shooting and 19 percent (3-16) three-point shooting while CSP shot 31 percent (18-59) from the field and 26 percent (5-19) from the arc.
Kuma finished with nine points in 23 minutes off the bench, adding three assists and Wheatcraft had five points and six rebounds to go with her four steals.
Sydney Zgutowicz scored eight points including 2-4 three-point shooting and collected six rebounds.
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