Coyotes register first win in WNIT
The USD women’s basketball team will progress into the second round of the Women’s National Invitational Tournament after their 78-55 win over the University of North Dakota Fighting Hawks on Thursday.
The Coyotes took 18 points each in the first and second quarter, while North Dakota scored nine and 12 in their first and second quarters, respectively.
Sophomore guard Allison Arens was the lead point scorer with 24 points. Jaycee Bradley came in with 14 points and seven rebounds in the game. Senior Abigail Fogg stepped up with 13 points and six rebounds.
The Coyote defense made it hard for North Dakota to keep scoring at a regular pace. Freshman Ciara Duffy was the wall with eight rebounds from the game for Coyotes.
North Dakota came in hard in the third and fourth quarters, with 16 and 18 points, but couldn’t catch up with the Coyotes’ 21 points in each quarter. Makailah Dyer was the lead scorer for North Dakota with 11 points, and Leah Szabla contributed 10 points.
Arens was cheerful with her run.
“Playing with different teams makes a difference,” she said.” Different teams guard you differently. Sometimes you go in and sometimes you don’t.”
Bradley said the team loves playing in the SCSC.
“I think first and foremost getting the chance to play here again in front of our home crowd is something we never take for granted,” she said. “We’ve been getting after in practice since Summit League tournament, so I think we feed off the energy and that intensity we got in the last couple of days.”
Coach Dawn Plitzuweit was content with her girls’ performance.
“Kids came out and played well with incredible energy from that start of the game. We face a very good opponent in North Dakota. They are very aggressive, very well-coached and they’re a disciplined team and so for our kids to come out and play as hard as well they did, it says the intensity of our kids,” she said. “We’re really proud of how they played toady. ”
The Coyote women play their next game against Iowa on Saturday at 3 p.m.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that the next women’s game is at 1 p.m. The Volante regrets the error.
