WAYNE – A busy home slate of non-conference games carried into the NSIC home opener for the Wayne State College women’s basketball team.
From Rice Auditorium, the Wildcat women hosted Augustana University.
WSC led by 11 points at the end of each quarter until the Wildcats won the game by double figures of 73-61. Wayne State College improved to 3-1 (1-0 NSIC) as the Vikings fell to 2-1 (0-1 NSIC).
After falling behind 5-0 to open the game, Wayne State College went on a 16-point scoring run to regain the lead once and never looked back. WSC won the first quarter scoring of 24-13 before both teams scored 18 second quarter points to put the ‘Cats up 42-31 at half. Both teams again scored 13 points in the third as WSC edged Augie in the fourth, 18-17 for a final of 73-61.
Senior Kylie Hammer set a new career-high in scoring with 24 points while grabbing nine rebounds and dishing out two assists (5-16 FG/3-7 3PT/11-15 FT). Junior Logan Hughes followed with 13 points and two assists (4-8 FG/2-2 3PT/3-4 FT); junior Kassidy Pingel added 12 points and five rebounds (4-7 FG/3-5 3PT/1-4 FT) as freshman Maya Fitzpatrick scored 10 points and grabbed seven boards (4-8 FG/1-4 3PT/1-1 FT).
Other scoring came from junior Lauren Zacharias with eight points, five rebounds, two assists, two steals and a block; freshman Abby Kopecky had three points, two steals and two assists; freshman Avery Kallman tallied two points as freshman Tate Norblade sunk a foul shot for a point.
Wayne State College finished 20-54 (37%) from the floor, 10-24 (41.7%) from the three point line and 23-34 (67.6%) from the foul line.
The Vikings were led by a trio of double figure scorers. Vishe’ Rabb scored 18 points off the bench, Aislinn Duffy added 17 points and Lauren Sees finished with 14 points.
Augie shot 22-60 (36.7%) from the field, 1-18 (5.6%) from behind the arc and 16-26 (61.5%) from the charity stripe.
WSC scored 23 points off 16 Augie turnovers while the Vikings scored 12 points off 19 WSC turnovers. The Vikings won the battle in the paint (40-12) and bench scoring (22-6) while WSC out rebounded Augie, 38-35 (9/11 offensive boards) which led to an 11-9 advantage in second chance scoring as well as 9-7 lead in fast breaks.
The Wayne State College women are back in action on Wednesday, November 24 closing out their non-conference schedule. WSC will host South Dakota Mines at 3:30 p.m. before being off until their next NSIC game on Thursday, December 2 welcoming in Southwest Minnesota State.
