MINNESOTA CROOKSTON WOMEN’S BASKETBALL DOMINATED ON THE GLASS IN LOSS TO MSU-MOORHEAD 

Minnesota Crookston women’s basketball was outrebounded 49-30 in a 76-60 loss against the MSU-Moorhead Dragons in UMC’s NSIC home-opener at Lysaker Gymnasium in Crookston
The Golden Eagles scored the first basket of the game with an Isieoma Odor (R-Sr., Bloomington) lay-up giving UMC a 2-0 lead. MSU-Moorhead answered with a 6-0 run giving the Dragons a 6-2 lead. Minnesota Crookston scored the next four points with a lay-in from Caitlin Michaelis (Sr., Marshfield, WI) followed by another Odor jumper tying the game at 6-6 with 5:38 left to play in the first half. MSU-Moorhead scored seven unanswered points to take a 13-6 lead before Abby Guidinger (Soph., Waukesha, WI) scored inside cutting UMC’s deficit to 13-8 with 2:50 to play in the quarter. A Caitlin Michaelis three-pointer was sandwiched in between a pair of Dragons’ baskets allowing the visitors to claim a 17-12 lead after the first quarter.
 MSU-Moorhead started the second quarter with an 8-0 run beginning with a three-pointer made by Kiley Borowicz (Soph., Roseau) sparking the Dragons to a 25-12 lead with 8:30 left in the first half. Trailing 32-17 with 6:51 to play in the second quarter, UMC scored eight-straight points with three-pointers made by Ashely Freund (Soph., Jordan) and Kylea Praska (Freshman, Thief River Falls) helping to pull the Golden Eagles within 32-25 with 4:12 to play in the first half. MSU-Moorhead scored six-straight points to take a 13-point lead but UMC scored five of the final eight points in the half closing the deficit down to 41-30 at halftime. “The big key all night long was they got too many shots,” said Minnesota Crookston head coach Mike Roysland. “Obviously it came down to they had ten offensive boards in the first half. I think you’ve got to give them a lot of credit, they hit the glass really hard, but we just had a multitude of people, if it wasn’t one person on one possession it was somebody else so obviously Moorhead hits the boards really hard. We knew that in the scouting report, we talked about it all week long but obviously we didn’t get it done.”
Minnesota Crookston opened the second half with a Caitlin Michaelis three-pointer pulling the Golden Eagles within 41-33, the Dragons countered with two straight baskets before a Jacky Volkert (Sr., Arden Hills, MI) three-pointer pushed the visitors’ lead to 48-37. After a Steph McWilliams (Jr., Grand Forks, ND) three-pointer closed the gap to 52-41 with 3:08 to play in the quarter, the Golden Eagles continued on to a 6-2 run before a Megan Hintz (Jr., Rochester) three-pointer from the top of the key pushed the MSU-Moorhead lead back to 57-44. Isieoma Odor with back to back UMC baskets around another Borovich three-pointer at MSU-Moorhead took a 60-48 lead into the fourth quarter. 
The Golden Eagles opened the final quarter with a pair of free throws from Isieoma Odor to pull within 60-50. Kiley Borowicz responded with a pair of free throws at the other end before a Jacky Volkert lay-up pushed the Dragons’ lead to 64-50 with 7:26 remaining. A pair of Odor free throws closed the deficit back down to twelve before Borovich beat the shot-clock buzzer on a fade away from the baseline to regain a fourteen-point lead. The Golden Eagles got their first field goal of the quarter with 4:18 remaining with a Caitlin Michaelis jumper from the free throw line, but ultimately MSU-Moorhead proved too much on the glass with the Dragons pulling down seven offensive rebounds in the fourth quarter and eighteen offensive rebounds in the game to close out the 76-60 win. “We had some awfully good looks and we didn’t knock them down,” summarized Roysland. “At the end of the day, you’ve got to make some plays and we didn’t make enough plays. When you get outshot by 23 shots in a game, you’re really fighting uphill. They got too many opportunities.” Roysland further explained the significance of the loss adding, “you need to be better on your home court in this league. This was a really big wake-up call. We didn’t play the way we know that we’re capable of and I think the players are really disgusted in the locker room with the type of performance and not only that, but we seemed a step slow on the mental side of things.”
Minnesota Crookston falls to 6-2 overall and 1-1 in conference play. The Golden Eagles complete their NSIC weekend at home on Saturday when UMC hosts Northern State at 3:30 p.m. on KROX. Minnesota State-Moorhead improves to 6-2 overall and 2-0 in the NSIC.