Sports

Ladyjacks split pair of games on the road

Tyler Ohmann

01/28/2014

The Dakota College at Bottineau (DCB) Ladyjacks split a pair of games on the road this past week.

DCB topped Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) in Winnipeg last Monday by a score of 74-58. However, the Ladyjacks fell to a strong North Dakota State College of Science (NDSCS) 88-62 in Wahpeton last Thursday.

The split pushed the Ladyjacks record to 11-11 overall this season.

In the win over the CMU Blazers the Ladyjacks forced 31 turnovers, while committing only five to push themselves to a 16-point win.

“This was a good night for us,” stated DCB head coach Wayne Johnson. “We needed to get back on track after a couple of tough performances, and we did a number of things well tonight.”

The Ladyjacks were out rebounded 44-34, but also shot the ball 14 more times than the Blazers. DCB was blistering from beyond the arc as they went 11-for-24, a 46 percent clip from distance.

The outside barrage came mostly from the two biggest scoring leaders for the Ladyjacks in the game—freshman Imani Scott and sophomore Tiffany Bradford.

Scott finished with 25 points and three assists, while Bradford added 24 points and six rebounds.

DCB led by 18 at halftime, and held steady in the second half, but faltered a bit inside.

“One area we need to clean up is the number of shots they got inside the paint,” Johnson stated. “We certainly cannot allow that in our upcoming MonDak Conference games.”

The Ladyjacks were unable to turn the win into momentum, as they ran into a hot-shooting NDSCS team last Thursday.

The Wildcats shot a scorching 69 percent from the field in the first half that led to a 52-30 halftime lead.

They cooled off in the second  half, but still out shot DCB 57 percent to 40 percent.

“Defensively we were on our heels from the start,” Johnson stated. “They hit some shots that we gave them according to our game plan and things just snowballed.”

The Ladyjacks played much steadier in the second half, but at that point the lead was insurmountable.

Savannah Bruce had 17 points and five boards to lead the Ladyjacks. Bradford had 13 points as the only other player for DCB to get in double digits.

The Ladyjacks also played last night at home against Lake Region State College, but scores and stats were unavailable by press time.
Next up for the Ladyjacks is a home game at 6 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 3.