NDSU Women’s Basketball Downs St. Thomas in Summit League Opener, 73-59

ST. PAUL, Minn. – The North Dakota State women’s basketball team opened Summit League play with a 73-59 win over St. Thomas on Saturday afternoon at Schoenecker Arena.

With the win, the Bison improve to 9-5 (1-0 Summit) on the season and have won each of their last four Summit League openers. St. Thomas falls to 8-7 (0-2 Summit) overall on the season.

Avery Koenen notched his third double-double of the season with a team-high 13 points and 11 rebounds. Abby Krzewinski scored 12 points with four rebounds and Abbie Draper narrowly missed his own double-double with 11 points and nine rebounds.

As a team, NDSU shot 51.1 percent (23-45) from the field and 42.9 percent (6-14) from three with nine players in the scoring column. The Bison tied a season-high 40 points in the paint and notched 23 points from turnovers. NDSU also grabbed 40 rebounds to the Tommies’ 19.

After building a six-point lead, 51-45, after three quarters of play, NDSU started the fourth frame with a key 9-2 run that spanned just over three minutes to extend its edge to 60-47 with a layup from Draper at the 5:57 mark. The Bison then put together another 8-1 run to increase their biggest lead of the contest, 70-54, with 2:04 left on a layup from Claire Stern. NDSU went on to close out the remaining time to pick up the 73-59 victory.

NDSU will be back in action hosting Denver on Thursday. Tip-off is set for 19.00 in the Scheels Center.