Black Hills State women's basketball prepares to hit the road for their first pair of regular season road games. They'll be making a trip to Billings, Montana to take on the MSU-Billings Yellowjackets on Tuesday, Nov. 22 at 7 p.m. before the Thanksgiving intermission.
 
Coming back from the holiday break, the ladies will head to Rapid City for a non-conference bout against South Dakota Mines on Monday, Nov. 28 with tipoff at 5 p.m. These will be the last of non-conference matchups for the Yellow Jackets as they will begin RMAC play in December.
 
BHSU is coming off a pair of non-conference victories from last Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday evening saw the Yellow Jackets defeat the University of Mary 77-67 before besting Minot State on Thursday night, 61-50. The wins helped boost the Yellow Jackets from sixth overall in the RMAC to third in the conference.
 
Combined, the Yellow Jackets shot 46.9 percent from the field that included a 47.7 percent clip from three, while shooting 63.6 percent from the free throw line. The women's team enters this week sixth in points per game and fifth in defense, holding opponents to 62 points per contest.
 
Danica Kocer remains a top-ten scorer in the RMAC as she holds 16 points per bout and 64 total points on the young season. While she led the Yellow Jackets with 18 points against UMary on Wednesday, she also held the team high in steals with six while also nabbing five defensive rebounds.
 
Senior guard Megan Engesser has proven to be a threat from long-range as she sits fourth in the RMAC with an even .500 percentage from beyond the arch and first in three-point field goals per game. Last weekend against Minot State, Engesser shot all nine of her baskets from three-point range and made six, leading the Yellow Jackets with an 18-point performance while snagging a defensive board, an assist, and a steal.
 

BLACK HILLS STATE at MSU-BIllings  TUESDAY, NOV. 22 // 7 P.M. // BILLINGS, MONT. // ALTEROWITZ GYMNASIUM Live Stream / Live Stats

 
Black Hills State (3-1, 0-0 RMAC) at MSU-Billings (4-0, 0-0 GNAC)
The opposing Yellowjackets currently sit 4-0 on the season that includes three matches in Hawaii on the weekend of Nov. 11, and a contest against Minot State last weekend. In all games except for their Nov. 11 matchup against Hawaii Pacific, who MSUB beat by nine, all of their games have been double-digit victories.
 
Last weekend against the Beavers, the Yellowjackets defeated Minot State 78-44 thanks to a dominant 25-11 second quarter and a 22-4 third. MSUB hit 48.3 percent of their field goals and knocked down eight three-pointers while making 12-16 from the charity stripe. In the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, MSUB currently sits in a three-way tie for first in the conference.
 
BHSU has won two of the last three against MSUB, with the last contest, which took place on Nov. 13, 2019, ending in a 60-42 BHSU victory.
 

BLACK HILLS STATE at SOUTH DAKOTA MINES  MONDAY, NOV. 28 // 5 P.M. // RAPID CITY, S.D. // KING CENTER Live Stream / Live Stats

 
Yellow Jackets (3-1, 0-0 RMAC) at South Dakota Mines (0-4, 0-0 RMAC)
Following Thanksgiving weekend, both teams will compete on Monday, Nov. 28 in the final non-conference matchup of the season for both squads.  
 
South Dakota Mines has had a rough start to the season, sitting 0-4 that included two home matchups to start the season and two east-river contests last weekend. The Hardrockers lost in a tight one to the University of Sioux Falls last Friday, 64-57, before falling to Northern State 87-53 on Sunday afternoon.
 
Despite a loss against West Texas A&M on Nov. 12, the Hardrockers held their best shooting percentages of the season after hitting a .421 clip from the field that included a 33 percent mark from long-range. Holding the homecourt advantage against an in-state rival, SDM looks to notch their first win of the season against BHSU, who they will face again in-conference on Jan 24, 2023.
 
The last meeting between the South Dakota rivals was Feb. 19, 2022 and ended in a narrow 61-58 win for the Hardrockers. Dating back to 2003, the Yellow Jackets hold a 25-16 record against South Dakota Mines.