UND senior Emily Evers dribbles the ball last Tuesday at the Betty Engelstad Sioux Center. Photo by Nicholas Nelson/The Dakota Student.

Home opener curses are a thing of the past for the UND women’s basketball team.

A strong second half led UND to a victory over Milwaukee on Tuesday night. It is the second year in a row that UND has won its opening game.

Milwaukee took a 50-32 lead into half. But after that, the crowd’s discouragement would soon be put away.

The second half opened up the floodgates for UND, which whittled Milwaukee’s lead down to 10 in the first five minutes of the second half.

UND finally broke ahead after freshman Bailey Strand hit a three-point shot eight minutes into the half, signaling an eruption from the crowd.

“I thought that was a momentum swing right there,” UND coach Travis Brewster said. “I thought the group did a great job of playing defensive possessions. We switched out on defensive side, and we started to lock them down and Bailey hit that key three to finally put us ahead.”

UND scored 51 points in its comeback bid, winning the game 83-76.

Strand has had a promising start to her season, seeing a rise in minutes played in every game through the preseason and into the regular season.

On Saturday against Colorado, she played four minutes, attempting three shots and getting one. Her hard work paid off Tuesday, as she saw her time played quadrupled, playing 16 minutes, attempting 11 shots and hitting five of them for 13 points.

While Strand may have hit the go-ahead basket, three other players hit double digit points and were essential parts in the team’s impressive come-from-behind win.

Junior Mia Loyd was good for 20 points, 18 of which came in the second half.

Sophomore Leah Szabla had 19 points, and Emily Evers added in an additional 14.

“Its all about heart for these young women,” Brewster said. “I challenged them at the shoot around about this game, and they responded. It was possession by possession. I thought that it was truly a group effort. I thought people responded. Mia Loyd got herself going, kind of went back and got herself back to the game she played last year.”

UND doesn’t have much time to celebrate this victory as it will travel to Townson University to play a pair of games this Friday and Saturday as part of the consolation round of the Preseason WNIT.

UND will face St. Francis Brooklyn on Friday. Depending on the outcome of it own game, North Dakota will either face Townson or Rider on Saturday.

Kyle Beaucham is a staff writer for The Dakota Student. He can be reached at [email protected].