Women’s basketball team powers past Oral Roberts

Womens+basketball+team+powers+past+Oral+Roberts

Evan Patzwald, Reporter

A perfect second quarter from the South Dakota State women’s basketball team allowed them to get ahead early and propelled the Jackrabbits to a road victory over Oral Roberts Saturday afternoon. 

SDSU was coming off two strong wins over rival South Dakota last weekend, while Oral Roberts had lost three straight games coming into the contest. 

A rough start from the field for No. 23 South Dakota State (16-2, 9-0) is what kept Oral Roberts (6-11, 4-5) in the game for a short period. The Jacks shot 15.8% from the floor and 14.3% on 3-pointers in the first quarter, but only trailed by three heading into the second.

Until the start of the second quarter.

The Jackrabbits did not miss a single shot in the second quarter, shooting 11-11 overall on field goals and an astonishing 7-7 on threes. A 22-5 run from the visiting team in the final five minutes of the half capped off the quarter in which SDSU outscored Oral Roberts 32-13.

“You wish you could do that all the time,” coach Aaron Johnston said postgame of his team’s strong second quarter. “To see that today was great, and it was fun to see many players getting involved.”

One of those players was Sydney Stapelton, who has put together a nice stretch of games in the past few weeks. She scored 9 points during the run in the first half.

“Sydney had a phenomenal quarter,” Johnston said. “After what she’s done in the past few weeks, she’s really worked into a consistent role for us. She’s playing with a lot of confidence, she’s defending better, rebounding and making shots. She’s shooting very well for us in that backup guard role.”

SDSU led by 16 at the half. 

Oral Roberts never came closer than that in the second half of play and saw themselves down by as many as 24 late in the game. Another contribution to that was the Golden Eagles getting outrebounded on the offensive boards 21-6.

“I thought we were much more physical on the boards and did a good job of limiting those shots,” Johnston said. “It also just gives us another chance to get ahead in transition, as well.”

Leading the way for the Jackrabbits was redshirt junior Myah Selland. She showed out, adding to an already fantastic season finishing with 18 points, eight rebounds and five assists. Selland was one of 10 players named semi-finalists for the Becky Hammon Mid-Major Player of the Year award earlier in the week.

Freshman Tierney Coleman finished with 19 points, and Keni Jo Lippe scored 16 to pace the Golden Eagles.