No. 13 ranked Dakota State used hot shooting and solid defense to defeat No. 22 Minot State University 91-66 in Dakota Athletic Conference women’s basketball here Saturday.

The Lady T's kept pace with Black Hills State as the top teams in the DAC at
10-4, while MSU, tied with the two team coming into Saturday's game, dropped to third at 9-4. MSU fell to 18-9 overall, while DSU improved to 18-9.

"We've been playing very well on defense the past two months," said Dakota State coach Jeff Dittman.  "Tonight, however, our offense was dominant.  We were able to shoot the three well, which opened the lane for penetration and our posts.  We read things well and made good decisions with the basketball."

The Lady T's finished with five players in double figures, led by Jessica VanLoy’s 21 points. Nicole Geraets and Angela Carr added 17 apiece, Laura Tewes finished with 14 and Tricia Boldt scored 11. DSU was a blistering 11 of 22 on 3-pointers.

“We didn’t handle their pressure very well and they shot the ball very well. That pretty much was the story,” MSU head coach Sheila Green Gerding said. “We had a game plan on defense coming in, we wanted to play our “red” defense when they started knocking down shots, we had to go to something else.”

The Beavers turned the ball over 24 times and were outscored 52-37 in the second half. Dakota State opened a 10-point first half lead then quickly extended it to a
24-point lead early in the second half.

“We felt pretty good overall at halftime. We cut it to six right before the half and thought we took their best shot,” Green Gerding said. “Then they came out and scored on the first seven possessions of the second half.”

MSU’s lone bright spot was senior Kendra Meyer broke the Beavers’ all-time scoring mark in the second half. The senior finished with 16 points, eclipsing the former mark of 1,620 career points set by Kayla Bloms. Meyer has 1,624 in her standout four-year career. Lashay Bagsby led the Beavers’ scoring attack with 24 points, but only Bagsby and Meyer finished in double figures.

“We had trouble all night on offense,” Green Gerding said.  “The second night is always a tough one and we knew it wasn’t going to be easy coming here. Dakota State is a very good team.”