Women's Basketball | 1/31/2018 3:15:00 PM

SPEARFISH, S.D. – The Black Hills State University women's basketball team heads to Colorado for rematch contests against the Metropolitan State University Denver Roadrunners and the University of Colorado Colorado Springs Mountain Lions. Tipoff is scheduled for 5 p.m. on Friday and 5:30 p.m. on Saturday.

THE GAME - MSU Denver

• The two teams meet for the second time this season on the hardwood in Denver, Colorado. The first time these two teams met, the Yellow Jackets defeated the Roadrunners, 72-57.
• Georgia Ohrdorf leads the Roadrunners offense averaging 13.5 points per game. Ja'Nae Squires Horton is right behind with an 11.7 ppg average. Jaelynn Smith works alongside Ohrdorf and Squires-Horton, averaging 5.3 assists per game. Mikala Gordon leads the defense with 165 total rebounds and a 7.9 rpg average.
• MSU Denver currently sits in sixth place, with a 10-5 conference record and a 14-7 overall record.

THE GAME - UCCS

• The two teams meet for the second time this season on the hardwood in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The last time these two teams met was on December 1, 2017, when the Yellow Jackets defeated the Mountain Lions, 62-37.
• Shanah Leaf leads the UCCS offense averaging 10.2 ppg and a .519 field goal percentage. On defense, Tatum Tellin leads with a 5.1 rpg average.
• The Mountain Lions rank 10th in the conference with a 7-8 RMAC record and a 7-13 overall record with seven games remaining on the season.

THE COACHES

• Black Hills State University head coach Mark Nore enters his 16th season with the Yellow Jackets and owns a 279-179 record. He is the all-time wins leader for the Yellow Jacket basketball team.
• Tanya Haave is in her eighth season with the Roadrunners program and has posted the top two win totals and winning percentages in a three-year stretch, making it the best in school history. She has put together the only three teams to win NCAA tournament games. The Roadrunners have won the RMAC regular season title twice and Haave has earned RMAC Coach of the Year honors in 2011 and 2012.
• Lynn Plett is in his second season at the helm of the Mountain Lions program. He led UCCS to the RMAC Tournament Championship in 2017 and its third straight NCAA tournament appearance. Prior to UCCS, Plett coached four season at Northern Kentucky and led the team to the Women's Basketball Invitational postseason tournament each season during the transition from NCAA DII to DI. The Norse finished runner-up in the Atlantic Sun Conference Tournament in 2015 and reached the semifinals of the Horizon League Tournament in 2016.

LAST TIME OUT
Black Hills State extended its win streak to six with two victories on the road at Colorado Mesa, 56-53, and Western State, 67-61.
 
Against Colorado Mesa, Julia Seamans led the offense with 16 points, going 5-13 from the field, 4-10 from beyond the arc, and 2-2 from the line. Katie Messler grabbed a team-high 11 rebounds in 28 minutes of action.
 
Against Western State, Lyndzi Rich notched 14 points while Rachel Erickson and Keely Bertram each had 11. Rich and Messler each grabbed seven rebounds. Hannah Cass had a career-high two assists, as well.

LOOKING AHEAD
The Yellow Jackets currently sit in a second place tie with Fort Lewis. With seven games remaining in the season, the Green and Gold are looking to make their fourth RMAC Tournament appearance since joining in 2012. Black Hills State is 3-3 in postseason RMAC appearances. It finished runner-up in 2013-14, going 3-1 in the tournament falling to Colorado Mesa in the Championship game. In 2014-15 and 2015-16, BHSU fell in the first round.
 
NEW YEAR, NEW SEASON
The Yellow Jackets are 7-1 in the 2018 portion of the season. Since joining the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference and the NCAA era in 2012, the Yellow Jackets have captured their second best start to the second half of the season. In the 2015-16 season, the Yellow Jackets went 7-3 for the month of January and finished their season 21-8 overall, 17-5 in conference, and earned their first ever NCAA Tournament appearance losing in the second round to West Texas A&M, 63-48.

Following the weekend, the Yellow Jackets complete their five-game road stretch at in-state rival South Dakota Mines in Rapid City on Tuesday, February 6, before returning home to host Colorado Christian University on Saturday, February 10. Tipoff is slated for 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday and 4 p.m. on Saturday.