Black Hills State women's basketball hits the road to complete their 2022-23 regular season with road games on Wednesday and Thursday night against Colorado Christian and Chadron State on those respective days.
Tipoff against the Cougars is slated for 5 p.m. while their Thursday night matchup against the Eagles has a 5:30 p.m. start time.
WEDNESDAY VS. COLORADO CHRISTIAN
Through the month of February, the CCU Cougars have fallen 1-4 in tough matchups over the last four weeks. The record may speak volumes about how the season has gone for them, but three of the five games have been decided by eight points or less, including a very slim, 70-69 loss to the No. 16/17 Colorado Mines last weekend.
CCU's offense currently ranks fourth in the conference as the team averages 68.1 points per game. On defese, however, they fall into 12th as they've allowed opponents to score 69.6 points per game this season, giving them a -1.5 point margin that ranks them ninth in the conference.
COUGARS' LAST TIME OUT
After a close 70-69 loss to Colorado School of Mines the Cougars came to Denver for their last away game of the season to take on Metro State with fire under their feet. Not to mention they lost to MSU Denver earlier in the season at home 61-67.
It was a close game from the tip with both teams scoring back and forth. Colorado Christian ended the first quarter down 16-12. The Cougars being one of the best rebounding teams in the RMAC were tied with the Roadrunners 12 to 12 going into the 2nd. RMAC's leading scorer Kendra Parra came out hot with 8 points giving the Cougars trouble.
The Cougars took the lead quickly within the first 1:30 of the 2nd quarter starting, with Tessa Hauser scoring 2 then Regan LoConte hitting a 3 to go up 17-16. Mykaela Moore had the challenging task of guarding Parra for most of the 2nd quarter, which the Freshman didn't allow any points from the star Roadrunner guard. However, the Cougars couldn't seem to out-rebound Parra as she had 10 boards going into the half. That didn't stop the Cougars from leading the rebounding battle 25-21. Maggie Hutka was the games leading scorer up to this point with 11, while the Roadrunners led 30-27.
Right out of the gates at the start of the 3rd quarter, Regan LoConte drilled a 3 to tie the game up. Shortly after, Jaiden Galloway of MSU Denver scored through contact and made her free throw to put the Roadrunners up 39-35. With the Roadrunners momentum, the Cougars could not inch back at the deficit, ending up down 7 after the 3rd quarter.
The Roadrunners carried their energy into the 4th quarter scoring 5 points in the first 1:22 which forced a Cougar timeout. That didn't stop the Roadrunners as they finished the game out strong winning on their senior night 60-52.
The leading scorer and rebounder for MSU Denver was Kendra Parra with 17 points and 14 boards. For the Cougars the Freshman Maggie Hutka had a great game scoring 14 points while shooting 50% from the field.
LAST MATCHUP: BHSU vs CCU (JAN. 26, 2023)
Black Hills State University women's basketball hosted the Cougars of Colorado Christian on Thursday night, defeating CCU 73-60 to stretch their win streak to six in a row.
Megan Engesser got things started with two technical free throws before tipoff, which was complimented by a
Danica Kocer three-point ball to give BHSU a 5-0 score inside of the first minute. Kocer and
Niki Van Wyk hit a pair of treys to give BHSU an 11-4 lead before CCU began to strum up some offense. After traded buckets, two CCU three-pointers brought the score to 15-14 with 4:39 to go in the quarter. Down the stretch, CCU took the lead on an 8-0 run thanks to eight forced turnovers on BHSU. At the end of one, CCU led 22-18.
The Cougars stretched their run to 10-0 before a lone Kocer layup kicked off an 8-1 run from the Yellow Jackets to claim a one-point lead as both teams traded shots once again. Shooting slowed down in the latter half of the quarter, but a three from
Haylee Weathersby and a pair of layups from Van Wyk near the end gave BHSU a 38-33 lead as the game's first half expired.
Both teams traded buckets to start the second half, with BHSU taking a brief eight-point lead before a trey from CCU maintained the five-point gap that was left at halftime. Launching off the three to create a 7-0 run, the Cougars were back to a one-point deficit with 4:59 left in the third. BHSU, however, ran up a 9-2 series to end the quarter, with BHSU holding their largest lead of the night at 57-48.
Both teams duked out a 7-6 quarter by the 4:46 mark, but BHSU kept control of the wheel down the stretch despite a tough CCU defense as the game was decided from the charity stripe. BHSU went on to claim the last five points of the contest to take the 73-60 victory over CCU.
A WEDNESDAY BHSU WIN WOULD...
Keep the lady Yellow Jackets on-pace to finish the season with a third-seed spot in the RMAC.
A WEDNESDAY BHSU LOSS WOULD...
See BHSU, potentially, tie with Adams State for third place in the RMAC depending on their weekend results. Both teams held a tiebreaker round last weekend and saw the Yellow Jackets come out on top.
THURSDAY VS. CHADRON STATE
The next stop for the Yellow Jackets this week will be in Chadron, Nebraska for a showdown against the bottom-ranked Chadron State Eagles. CSC has struggled since the start of the New Year as they've only secured two wins against Fort Lewis and South Dakota Mines in 2023.
Despite their shortcomings, sophomore forward Ashayla Powers has had an incredible season. The Longmount, Colorado native has had two player of the week nods from the RMAC and is the third best in scoring (16.8 PPG) and field goal percentage (55.1 percent), tenth in free throw percentage (71.3 percent), and ninth in rebounding (7.1 RPG) in the conference.
EAGLES' LAST TIME OUT
While playing at Colorado School of Mines in Golden on Saturday, the Chadron State College women's basketball team scored 62 points, which is two points more than its season average.
However, the Lady Orediggers shot over 50% from the field, made 14-of-31 shots from behind the arc and finished with 100 total points while improving their record to 21-4 for the season and 17-3 in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference. They share the top rung of the conference standings with Regis.
The hosts jumped out to a 25-13 first quarter lead, were ahead 54-26 at halftime, barely outscored CSC 16-14 in the third stanza, but poured in 30 points in the final 10 minutes.
It's the first time an opponent has scored 100 points against the CSC women since Feb. 20, 2015, when Colorado-Colorado Springs won by a 100-68 score. On Saturday, a dozen Orediggers scored and eight of them tallied at least eight points.
Chadron State was 17-of-52 from the field for 32.7% and made three of 16 shots from 3-point range. There was one place where the Eagles outdid the Orediggers. CSC was 25-of-35 at the free throw line and Mines was just 12-of-16.
11 Eagles scored, led by Shay Powers, who was the game's high scorer with 23 points. She was 7-of-10 from the field and 9-of-12 at the free throw line. Samiyah Worrell added nine points and both Allison Olsen and Kadyn Comer scored eight.
LAST MATCHUP: BHSU vs ASU (FEB. 15, 2022)
Black Hills State women's basketball defeated Chadron State 58-46 Tuesday evening on the road in Chadron, Neb.
Both offenses started out the night slow as it took almost three minutes of game play before a 3-pointer by
Ashley Davis would give the Yellow Jackets the first points of the night. From that point the Yellow Jackets would go on an 16-8 run to give them a 13-point lead with just over a minute to play in the quarter. A pair of Eagle layups would cut into that lead and help set up a 21-11 score at the end of the first.
The Eagles would string together a handful of scoring plays in the second quarter cutting the Yellow Jacket lead to six at the 4:30 mark before BHSU went on to outscore CSC, 9-5. This scoring run allowed the Yellow Jackets to take a ten-point lead into the break, now up 35-25.
Chadron came out of the break making their only two three-point baskets back-to-back cutting the Yellow Jacket lead to four with over nine minutes left in the third. BHSU answered the Eagles challenge with an
Ashlee Beacom three and a three-point play by
Danica Kocer setting BHSU's lead back to ten.
From that point, the two teams traded baskets with a last-second shot by the Eagles setting the score at 46-38 in favor of BHSU heading into the final ten minutes of regulation.
The two teams played a competitive fourth quarter highlighted by defensive play. The Yellow Jackets recorded four steals in the fourth quarter and forced nine turnovers while outscoring the Eagles 12-8 to set up the game final of 58-46.
As a team the Yellow Jackets shot 37.0% from the field making 20 of 54 attempts. From downtown BHSU shot 33.3% sinking 8-of-24 three-point attempts.
At the free throw line, the Yellow Jackets made 10-of-13 free throw attempts for a 76.9% average from the charity stripe.
COACHES
Black Hills State: In his 21st season as head coach of the Yellow Jackets,
Mark Nore is the winningest coach in BHSU Athletics history for the women's basketball program with an overall record of 370-228.
Colorado Christian: Diane Thompson enters her second season as the Cougar women's basketball head coach. Prior to her arrival she has served in various coaching roles at Regis, CSU Pueblo, Fort Lewis, and MSU Denver.
Chadron State: Janet Raymer enters her seventh season as head women's basketball coach at Chadron State College in 2022-23. Prior to taking the position at Chadron State, Raymer served as the head girls' basketball coach and assistant boys' basketball coach at her alma mater Hay Springs High School just 19 miles outside of Chadron.
-BHSUAthletics.com-
