WAYNE, Neb. (Rice Auditorium) - Senior Heidi Matzke (G, Red Lake Falls, Minn.) and freshman Taylor Davis (F, Crookston, Minn.) led the Beavers with double-digit point totals, but it wasn’t enough to stop Wayne State College on their home court Saturday as the Wildcats posted a 81-67 win over the Beavers in a Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference (NSIC) contest in Wayne, Neb.

The Beavers held an advantage for a large portion of the first half, but a 25-19 run to end the stanza would put the Wildcats up for good.

Matzke led the Beavers in the scoring column for the ninth time this season as she posted 19 points, her eleventh double-digit scoring performance of the season. She also added a season-high nine assists in 36 minutes of action. Davis came off the bench for the Beavers to score a career-high 14 points on 6-of-12 from the floor in 23 minutes of action. She added six rebounds, two steals and a assist. Colleen McKay (So., F, Barnum, Minn.) added eight points in the loss.

The duo of Laquisha Cook and Clare Duwelius poured in a combined 50 points in the contest. Cook netted a game and season-high 27 points on 10-of-21 from the field while grabbing seven rebounds while Duwelius posted a career-high 23 points on 8-of-16 from the field with a game-high five steals. Mara Hjelle grabbed a game-high eight rebounds for the Wildcats.

BSU got things started quickly as Matzke netted one of her seven field goals with just 1:10 gone in the half to give BSU the early lead, 2-0. A pair of free-throws by Cook tied the contest but a 4-0 run on a pair of lay up’s by Katherine Jamnick (Jr., F, Soudan, Minn.) gave BSU a 6-2 lead.

The teams continued to trade baskets as score was tied six times in the first 10:43 of the half with the last tie score of the game and the half coming at the 9:17 mark. The momentum slowly started to shift in favor of the Wildcats as they pushed their lead to six (27-21) with 7:21 left in the half and held on to the six point lead heading into the halftime break (44-38).

Bemidji State came out of the locker room to net the first five points of the second half to close the Wildcats lead to one (44-43), but a 6-0 run by WSC pushed their lead back to seven points (50-43) with 16:53 left. The Beavers made one last surge as they went on a 9-3 run over a span of 3:16 closing the gap to one (53-52) with 13:52 left in the stanza but a 10-0 run by the Wildcats extended their lead to 11 (63-52) and although BSU would trim the deficit to nine (65-56), the Beavers would never recover.

Despite the loss the Beavers out shot their opponents for just the third time this season as BSU shot 45.8 percent from the field (27-59), 26.7 percent (4-15) from behind the arc and 81.8 percent from the charity stripe (9-11) while the Wildcats were 40.5 percent from the field (30-74), 22.2 percent (4-18) from the three-point line and 77.3 percent (17-22) from the free-throw line.

Bemidji State grabbed a 41-40 edge on the glass in the game but the biggest difference in the game was in the turnover category. Bemidji State committed 26 turnovers to just 11 for Wayne State.

The win extends the WSC’s lead in the all-time series to 21-12 as the Wildcats are on a two game winning streak over BSU.

Bemidji State (2-11; 0-6 NSIC) looks to garner its first conference win of the season next weekend (Jan. 9-10) as the Beavers host the Concordia University, St. Paul Golden Bears and St. Cloud State Huskies at the BSU Gymnasium. The Beavers will host the Golden Beavers on Friday, Jan. 9 and the St. Cloud State Huskies on Saturday, Jan. 10. Tip off for both games is set for 6 p.m.

Notes: Bemidji State is currently on a season-long nine game losing streak, longest since the 2004-05 season...BSU’s Matzke led the Beavers in scoring for the ninth time this season...BSU’s Davis had a career-high 14 points...Wayne State had two twenty point scorers...BSU committed fifteen more turnovers then did WSC...BSU is 2-11 for the first time since the 2004-05 season...Matzke moved into sixth on BSU’s all-time assist list with 280 assist’s passing Holly Logghe (1993-97).

Bemidji State University, located in Bemidji, Minn., is an NCAA Division II institution and a member of the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference (NSIC).

--beavers--