The
Black Hills State women’s basketball
team moved into a three-way tie for
first place in the Dakota Athletic
Conference by edging Dakota State
62-60 on Saturday night.
BHSU, Dakota
State, and Minot State now all share
the DAC top spot with 8-3 conference
records. Each team has three league
games remaining.
Last night’s fiercely-fought game
went right down to the wire. Black
Hills State trailed 58-55 with 3:25
to play before the Lady Jackets went
on a seven-point scoring spurt.
Lacey Haughian sank a pair of free
throws, Brittany Fuhrman tossed in a
3-point shot, and Bayley Chevron
added two more foul shots to put
Black Hills on top 62-58 with just
53 seconds left on the clock.
Dakota State’s Maria Gengler
countered with a bucket underneath,
and the Lady Trojans got the ball
back with five seconds left, down by
just two points. DSU coach Jeff
Dittman called a timeout to set up a
potential game-tying or game-winning
play, but Haughlin intercepted the
Lady T’s in-bounds lob pass to
preserve the well-earned victory.
“It was a huge win for us,” said
Black Hills coach Mark Nore. “We
missed a lot of layups tonight, but
we got some critical rebounds and
our girls made some big plays at the
end.”
While disappointed with the tough
loss, Dittman was not displeased
with going home with a weekend split
(DSU downed South Dakota Mines
Friday).
“We're still in
first place and we have our final
three conference games at home.
If we win out, we are the conference
champions and have the number one
seed in the league. We control
our own fate, that's about all you
can ask for at this time of the
year,” said Dittman.
“Black Hills had
Parent's
and Senior Night
tonight so they had a lot of
emotion going for them
at the start of the game,”
said Dittman.
"We
fell behind early, but our
athletes
kept their composure and did the
things they needed to do to get back
into the game,” he added.
Dakota State scored the first bucket
of the night before Black Hills went
on an 8-0 run.
Fuhrman nailed a 3-ball with at the
11:41 mark of the opening half to
put the Jackets up 19-9.
Dakota State battled back to
deadlock the score at 29-29 before
Lindsey Buthe connected on a 16-foot
shot from the corner to give Black
Hills a
31-29 halftime edge.
Game statistics showed the two
well-matched teams virtually even in
every category except one —
rebounding. Black Hills won the
battle of the boards by a convincing
43 to 34 margin and the Lady Jackets
grabbed 18 offensive rebounds to
just 11 for Dakota State.
“We did a great job on the boards
tonight and that helped a lot,” said
Nore.
Snjezana
Dojcinovic pulled down nine rebounds
for BHSU, Haughian had seven, and
reserve Alana Dykehouse six.
Haughian led
the Lady Jackets in scoring with 14
points. Buthe and Katelynn Lamb
scored 10 points each, and Fuhrman
had nine points on three successful
shots from behind the arc.
Lamb turned in big games off the
bench in both weekend games and Nore
said, “Katelynn stepped up and
became a better player the past two
nights.”
