Black Hills State women's basketball took down Western Colorado Friday night to advance to the RMAC Championship game 67-62.
 
The Yellow Jackets bested their performance Tuesday night against Westminster shooting 47.7% from the field and 47.8% from beyond the arc in the team's victory against Western Colorado. Leading the team in scoring was Racquel Wientjes with 28 points and Morgan Ham with 21 points.

"Our team was on a mission with Racquel and Morgan leading the charge," commented head coach Mark Nore.
 
In the first quarter of play it took BHSU a little while to get set as they would open the game with three turnovers in the first two minutes of play. Morgan Ham would be the first Yellow Jacket to get hot putting up all 12 of the team's first 12 points sinking three 3-pointers. As the rest of the team got going Western Colorado would hang tight with the score at the end of the first set at 20-19 in favor of the Mountaineers.
 
Throughout the second quarter the Yellow Jackets stayed hot shooting 40% from the field and 50% from beyond the arc. Both teams would shoot with precision shooting basket for basket against one another to bring the halftime score to 35-34 still in favor of the Mountaineers.
 
Coming out of the break BHSU kept the pace of the first half taking the lead coming out of the break on a Wientjes 3-pointer and holding that lead into the fourth quarter. In the first seven minutes of the second half the Yellow Jackets would outscore the Mountaineers 20-10 taking a nine-point lead. Western Colorado would be able to get some of those points back before the end of the quarter setting up the score of 56-52 in favor of BHSU headed into the final 10 minutes of regulation.
 
The fourth quarter would open up with a 3-pointer by Danica Kocer to set the tone for the end of the match. Both defenses would lock in throughout the quarter as both teams had players in foul trouble. Western Colorado would tie the game twice in the fourth quarter at 59 and 61 all but would be unable to take the lead from the Yellow Jackets as BHSU would secure the game victory 67-62.
 
The Yellow Jackets made 21-of-44 field goals and 11-of-23 3-pointers on the night. BHSU shot 73.7% (14-of-19) from the charity stripe with forcing 14 turnovers and tallying seven steals.
 
Megan Engesser lead the team defensively recording three steals and two rebounds while Ham pulled in five boards of her own.

Up Next
The Yellow Jackets will face Colorado School of Mines in the Championship game tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m. in Golden, Colo.