Box Score

DULUTH, Minn. – The Southwest Minnesota State women's basketball team closed its season on Wednesday night with an 87-57 loss at Minnesota Duluth inside Romano Gymnasium in the first round of the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference/Sanford Tournament.
 
Minnesota Duluth, the No. 2 seed from the North Division, improves to 20-6 and advances to the second round of the NSIC/Sanford Tournament on Saturday at the Pentagon in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. UMD was also ranked No. 5 in the latest NCAA Central Region rankings released this week.
 
SMSU, the No. 7 from the South Division, ends the season 12-16.
 
Freshman guard Jenna Borchers recorded a career-high 21 points going 5 of 8 from the 3-point line. Sophomore guards Sadie Stelter and Meleah Reinhart added nine and eight points respectively.
 
SMSU shot 27 percent from the field and 36 percent from the 3-point line while UMD's double-digit nights from Emma Boehm with 22, Sarah Grow with 16, and Brooke Olson with 11, aided a 49 percent from the field and 53 percent from the 3-point line performance.
 
UMD's hot-shooting opened the first quarter with a 32-16 lead. UMD went 12 of 16 from the field to shoot 75 percent and was 100 percent from beyond the arc, connecting on 4 of 4 3-pointers for a high-scoring first quarter.
 
The Bulldogs came out in the second half in similar fashion to extend lead to 47-30. UMD created 13 points off turnovers while SMSU struggled to gain an upper hand with only one steal in the first half.
 
SMSU continued to crash the boards in the first half to outrebound UMD 29 to 15 with 14 of those offensive rebounds.
 
UMD continued to crash in the paint throughout the second half. Nine of Borchers' 21 came in the third quarter after going 3 of 5 from the field and a pair of 3-pointers.
 
Tonight's game was the final for SMSU senior, Sarah Buysse. Buysse closed her career with 646 points and ninth in all-time career for 3-point field goals attempted with 318.