Strong second half lifts Lady T's past Northwestern

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Strong second half lifts Lady T's past Northwestern

By Terry Hersom, Sioux City Journal (Sioux City, IA) - It was already a hard act to follow, simply walking out on the same Tyson Events Center floor where the Northwestern College women's basketball team won their second NAIA Division II national championship last March 18. Friday, launching a new season with an all-new lineup, the Red Raiders of Coach Earl Woudstra couldn't quite simulate the spectacular play of Deb Remmerde, Amy Larson and the rest of last winter's all-senior starting five. The youthful Raiders did get off to a promising start, building a 41-27 lead late in the first half, but strong three-point shooting in the second half helped Dakota State roar back to post an 85-81 victory in first-day action at the two-day Tyson Classic, an eight-team event with four teams from the Great Plains Athletic Conference matched up in two games apiece against four squads from the Dakota Athletic Conference.

Junior guard Alyssa Kirk hit five of seven three-point attempts and tallied a game-high 25 points as Dakota State, like Northwestern, unveiled an entirely new starting lineup. Katie Bourk added 21 points, sinking three treys, and Megan Swecker netted 18 as the Lady T's collected 64 of their 85 points from their three new starters on the perimeter. Trailing 41-31 at halftime, Dakota State used its perimeter sharpshooters to surge in front 56-55 less than seven minutes into the second half. And, it was a battle to the wire from there, deadlocked 77-77 before Kirk's final three-pointer put her team in front to say with three minutes to play. Dayna Tschakert, a 6-1 junior, came off the bench to add 10 points for Dakota State, playing its first game under Coach Joe Reints.

Reints is the successor to Jeff Dittman, who is here this weekend with No. 2-ranked Hastings, his new team after directing national tournament squads the last three of his 15 seasons at Dakota State. And, the Lady T's will get to face their former coach in this afternoon's first game, slated for 2 o'clock. Kristin Neth, a 5-11 sophomore from Scotland, S.D., had 20 points to lead Northwestern, which also got 19 from former Charter Oak-Ute star Kami Kuhlmann, one of three freshmen in the lineup.

The Raiders are playing without their two most veteran players because 6-1 junior Randa Hulstein is a member of Northwestern's highly regarded volleyball team and sophomore guard Becca Hurley is wrapping up a fall season with the school's women's soccer team. "I was pretty pleased with the way the kids were attacking the basket," said Woudstra. (Dakota State) hit a stretch where (Kirk) got hot and that changed the way we did everything else. I think our freshman guards (Kuhlmann and Val Kleinjan, who added 14 points) are going to be pretty good." In addition to Randa Hulstein, Northwestern has three more of its tallest cagers playing volleyball, Rylee Hulstein, Randa's sister, along with Kate Buyert and Melanie Babcock, a trio of 6-foot-ers. The Raiders face Mayville State at 6 p.m. today, the third of four games on the schedule.