by ST. BONIFACIUS, Minn. – The University of Minnesota Morris women’s basketball team forced 20 turnovers and held Crown College to less than 33 percent shooting from the field to nab a 73-58 road win on Saturday. The Cougars improve to 8-10 (5-2 UMAC) with the victory.
Despite a heavy rebounding disadvantage, Minnesota Morris was able to hang on by making life difficult on Crown shooters, particularly in the second half when the Storm barely shot better than 25 percent.
For a game that was close for more than 20 minutes, Crown surprisingly never had a single lead in the entire contest. With the score tied at 5-5 early on, the Storm went more than four minutes without scoring. During that time, Minnesota Morris went on a 6-0 run that was started and finished by a pair of free throws from Malory Anderson. Four quick points from Justine Day made it 15-7 before Crown ended the quarter with a 6-0 run of its own to make it 15-13 after 10 minutes.
Crown twice hit three-pointers in the second quarter to tie the game up, the last of which came with just under a minute to play in the half and knotted the score up at 32-32. Jadyn Sondrol made a layup on the next trip down the floor to send the Cougars to the break with a 34-32 edge.
The Storm tied the game one last time in the first minute of the third quarter, but that was answered by a game-changing 8-0 run from Minnesota Morris. Ella Van Kempen had the first two buckets to start the run and Jay Kwateh finished it off with the last two, making it 42-34. A three-point play from Kwateh later in the quarter gave the Cougars their first double-digit lead of the afternoon and UMN Morris went to the fourth quarter holding a 56-44 lead.
Minnesota Morris maintained at least a 10-point lead the rest of the way and the margin swelled to 17 points late in the game, allowing the Cougars to ease to their third straight win.
Lexus Eagle Chasing (Omaha/Sioux) did it all for the Cougars on the day, leading the team with 18 points, seven rebounds, six assists, and four steals. Van Kempen finished with 16 points and Day came off the bench for 15.
