Dakota State University's women's basketball
season came to a 70-65 end at the hands of the
South Dakota Tech's Lady Hardrockers' on the
Goodell Gymnasium floor Saturday in Rapid City.
The Lady T's, who finished the year at 17-13,
matched Tech bucket-for-bucket in the second
half with both ball clubs scoring 33 points in
the game's final 20 minutes.
Tech (20-12),
however, had built up a five-point, 37-32, lead
at halftime.
"Tech was a team that has been playing very well
in the last five weeks and had beaten us by 20
points just three weeks ago at home," said
Dakota State Coach Jeff Dittman. "I was a
little nervous as to how we would handle a "hot"
team, especially after the 20 hours we had spent
traveling in vans to and from our playoff game
in Minot."
Dakota State and Tech each made 25 field goals
in the contest but the Trojans had an 11-4
advantage in 3-pointers in the game. The
Lady Hardrockers, however, outscored Dakota
State 16-4 at the charity stripe.
On the night, Renae Bottum and Amber Malvin came
through with double-figure scoring performances
for the Lady T's. Bottum tied Tech's Megan
Barnes for game-high honors, netting 22 points
on 8-for-14 field goal shooting, which included
six 3's.
Malvin had 10
points on a pair of 3's and got another four
points with a pair of 2-point goals. Jill
Hansen and Angie Carr also contributed a pair of
8-point games for the Lady T's. Hansen
also had five assists in the game, while Amanda
Zephier had three.
Dakota State got 12 of its 38 rebounds from
Maria Gengler, who also scored six points.
Laura Tewes and Stacy Dunklau also had five
rebounds apiece for the Lady T's.
"We made a couple of runs at them, but Megan
Barnes, their senior guard, continued to hit big
shots for them throughout the second half."
The Lady Hardrockers, in addition to getting 22
points from Barnes, also got 16 points from
Melanie Vedvei and 10 more by her sister Stacie.
Melanie Vedvei also garnered seven rebounds and
Quinn Godecke was right behind with six.
Stacy Vedvei and Cori Leis each had five caroms.
Tech is slated to travel to Bismarck, N.D., to
play the University of Mary (28-2) Tuesday for
the DAC-10 Playoff Championship.
"I am looking forward to watching our young team
for the next three years," concluded Dittman.
"They have an opportunity to be a very special
squad."
