MSU Billings Women to Take on Cross-Town Rocky (February 5, 2003)
BILLINGS, MT – In a game that
has significantly more importance to one team than
the other, the MSU Billings Lady Yellowjackets will
travel just down the street Thursday night to face
Rocky Mountain College. For the Lady Jackets, the
game is about as close to a must-win situation as
there can be. For the Lady Bears, it’s just another
non-conference game.
Why is the game so important
for MSU Billings? The simple answer is “regional
poll.” For the Yellowjackets to qualify for the
NCAA Tournament, they must be ranked in the top
eight of the West Region. They currently sit at No.
4. The key to remaining ranked high in the poll is
earning quality strength-of-schedule points. And
NAIA teams don’t provide that.
The Jackets will likely have to
average between nine and ten strength-of-schedule
points per game in order to qualify for the
tournament. A win against an NAIA team is worth
only seven points regardless of the team’s record or
where the game is played. A loss to an NAIA team is
worth zero points, which can be devastating in the
poll. Last year, Western Washington’s men’s team
was 21-6, but lost to an NAIA team and was left out
of the tournament behind a 19-9 team.
The Yellowjackets are well
aware of the situation. Last year a scrappy Lady
Bears team came close to upsetting the
tournament-bound Yellowjackets at Alterowitz.
MSU Billings eventually pulled-out a 62-53 win.
That win pushed the Jackets’ series record to 51-14
against the Bears. MSUB has won 21 of the 30
meetings played at Rocky, including the last two.
The Lady Jackets will be much
less interested in history than they are in the
present significance of the game. And they will
rely on their defense and the experience of five
seniors to play through the emotion of a cross-town
rivalry. As a team, the Yellowjackets rank 20th in the nation for field goal percentage defense,
holding opponents to 35.5 percent shooting.
That defense is anchored by
senior Jessie Henigman, who ranks fifth in the
nation with 3.4 blocked shots per game. She is also
approaching the top 20 in NCAA history for career
blocks and needs only five more blocks to tie her
own school record of 66 in a season.
Offensively, the Jackets are
paced by senior forward Natalie Visger’s 15.7 points per game.
She has posted 21 double-doubles in her career,
including seven this season. Fellow senior Jessica Bachmann is scoring 11.7 points
per game and is counted upon to be the defensive
stopper against the opposition’s perimeter players.
After Thursday’s game at Rocky,
the Yellowjackets take their longest road trip of
the year when they play three games in Puerto Rico
on February 14, 15 and 16. Their final home games
will be February 22 and 23 when they host West
Region foe Western New Mexico.
Note: The Sunday, February 23
game against Western New Mexico has been moved from
7:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. |
