Box Score
The Augustana women's basketball team escaped with a win over U-Mary Friday night in Bismarck, N.D. The Vikings won 86-83, fighting off a late-game charge by the Marauders.
The win improves Augie to 19-5 on the season, and 13-4 in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference. U-Mary is now 9-15 overall and 5-12 in the conference.
The teams played an even first half, exchanging the lead throughout. U-Mary jumped out to a four-point lead, but a 3-pointer by junior guard
Megan Doyle followed by a layup and a free throw on the foul by
Molly Hayes made the score 9-7 in favor of the Vikings.
The Marauders built their lead up again, taking advantage at the charity stripe. But Augie kept pace, and trailed 23-21 with 9:13 remaining. The Vikings then scored seven unanswered points, all of which came from Doyle and freshman center
Alex Feeney. This gave Augie its biggest lead of the half at 28-23 with 6:46 on the clock.
The Marauders battled back, scoring nine straight points and with 5:24 left in the half, had a 32-28 advantage. They kept that advantage, and led 40-38 with 1:56 remaining, but back-to-back treys by junior guard
Tessa Wilka and sophomore guard
Faith Tinklenberg pulled the Vikings ahead 44-40.
Two made free throws by the Marauders followed by a layup at the buzzer by Wilka put Augie on top 46-42 at the break.
The Vikings shot 45.7 percent (16 of 35) from the field and 53.8 percent (7 of 17) from behind the arc, while the Marauders were 44.4 percent (12 of 27) shooting and 62.5 percent (5 of 8) from 3-point range.
Augie played tough defense, collecting six steals and forcing 12 U-Mary turnovers while only committing three turnovers of their own.
But the Marauders crashed the boards, outrebounding the Vikings 24-11.
U-Mary took the lead at the beginning of the second, scoring six straight points to open the half. The Vikings answered with a steak of their own, scoring eight unanswered points to take back the advantage, 54-58 with 17:20 left in the game.
The Marauders were able to build their biggest lead of the night, 67-61 with 10:34 remaining before Augie outscored U-Mary 20-8 in the next eight minutes, with 11 of those points coming from freshman forward
Lydia Nelson. This put the Vikings on top, 83-75, with 2:00 on the clock.
Back-to-back threes by U-Mary's Kayla Rogers made the score 83-81 in favor of the Vikings, with 22 seconds remaining. Doyle was fouled, and made only one of two free throws, allowing the Marauders to pull the score to 84-83 with six seconds left after Cassandra Kelsch made a layup. Tinklenberg was fouled immediately after, and sank both free throws to seal the win.
The Vikings narrowly outshot the Marauders, shooting 47.7 percent (31 of 65) compared to U-Mary's 46.7 percent (28 of 60) from the field.
The Marauders were more efficient from both the 3-point and free throw lines shooting 53.3 percent (8 of 15) from downtown and 76 percent (19 of 25) on free throws. Augie was 41.7 percent (10 of 24) from 3-point range and 66.7 percent (14 of 24) from the free throw line.
The Vikings forced U-Mary to 20 turnovers, and only turned the ball over 10 times themselves. Augie lost the battle of the boards, and were outrebounded 46-29.
Leading Augie was Nelson with 19 points. Doyle and Tinklenberg each poured in 14 points while Hayes and VerSteeg contributed 10 each.
The Vikings will be in action again tomorrow as they take on Northern State a 6 p.m. in Aberdeen, S.D.
