The University of North Dakota women’s basketball team’s undefeated streak at the Betty is over. South Dakota State University defeated the University of North Dakota 75-57 at the Betty Engelstad Sioux Center.   

UND went into this game after a decisive and important victory over NDSU (North Dakota State University) and after losing badly to the Jackrabbits in South Dakota. Currently, the Jackrabbits are ranked 1st in the Summit League with a 19-5 record. In the pre-game press conference, the day before the match-up both Head Coach Mallory Bernhard and Graduate student Juliet Gordon emphasized the prowess of SDSU, specifically focusing on their balance and size.  

“They can do a little bit of everything,” said Coach Bernhard, “play inside and we definitely saw that they can shoot from the three…so they’re a tough challenge…we just can’t have lapses.”   

Thursday night’s game did not start out with a disparity. The first half ended with a score of 35-31 in favor of the Jackrabbits. In the second quarter, UND and SDSU both scored 17 points. It was an even game, with UND in striking distance going into the third quarter. This season UND has struggled in the third, but it was the crucial turning point in their victory over NDSU. However, the old third-quarter struggle reared its ugly head with SDSU outscoring UND 25-13 in that quarter.   

“Our energy went down coming out from the halftime show. I think that we didn’t shoot well, but we still did a lot of good things in the third quarter, but we came out cold,” said Freshman Nakiyah Hurst, who had a great night. She was UNDs leading scorer for the game, potting sixteen points.   

UND was unable to regain their footing in the fourth and SDSU snapped UND’s perfect home record.   

“You look at it and really three of the quarters it’s a ball game,” said Coach Bernhard, “I’m going to look at offensive rebounds and I’m going to look at, they really got after us with some ball screens, really pushed in some situations and we just couldn’t quite figure it out. That’s when they hit those threes just kind of ended up being back breakers.”   

Coach Bernhard took issue with the number of offensive rebounds that SDSU was able to capitalize on, “20 offensive rebounds. That’s far too many.”   

“We can compete with the best in the league for at least those first 20 minutes…it’s a 40-minute game and we’ve got to be able to, you know find that 10 minutes, dig deeper a little bit,” said Coach Bernhard.   

The Women’s basketball team will not have another home game till February 16th and 18th when they are set to face off against Kansas City and Oral Roberts as the competition to make the postseason continues to rage on.   

Maeve Hushman is a Dakota Student Sports Reporter. She can be reached at [email protected].