Lady Yellowjackets Bow Out of West Region Tourney (March 15, 2003)
BILLINGS, MT – The MSU Billings women’s basketball
team had its season ended Saturday night in the NCAA
West Region semifinals, falling to top-ranked and
unbeaten Seattle Pacific 86-70. It was the Falcons’
35th straight win at home. The
Yellowjackets were able to stay close for most of
the game before the Falcons pulled away at the end
to improve to 29-0. MSUB finished the season with a
record of 21-7. Seattle Pacific will face
second-seeded Cal State-Bakersfield in the regional
championship game Monday night. CSUB has won 25 in
a row and scored over 100 points in each of the
first two rounds of the tournament.
The Yellowjackets won the opening tip and scored on
the first possession of the game to take a 2-0
lead. Seattle Pacific scored the next four points
to lead 4-2 and never trailed again. The Falcons
built a 47-39 halftime lead behind 52.6 percent
shooting from the field. The Jackets hit 6-of-11
from behind the arc in the opening half to keep the
game close.
The Yellowjackets weren’t able to close the gap to
less than eight for the first several minutes of the
second half. Freshman forward Tanya Petersen’s three-pointer midway through
the second half briefly cut the Falcons’ lead to
three, but that was as close as the Yellowjackets
could get as Seattle Pacific was able to hit the
important shots down the stretch, including 20-of-31
from the free throw line. SPU pulled away in the
final six minutes, leading by as many as 18 in the
final minute.
Senior guard Joan Langford led all Yellowjacket scorers for
the second straight night. After scoring a
career-high 20 in the first round against Central
Washington, Langford netted 15 in the semifinal
game. From three-point range, she hit 3-of-7 in the
game and 7-of-11 in the tournament.
Seniors Natalie Visger and Jessica Bachmann also scored double figures in
their final college games. Visger finished with 12
points to go along with six rebounds. She was
6-of-6 from the free throw line to finish her career
a perfect 100 percent from the line in four NCAA
Tournament games. Bachmann dropped in 13 points on
5-of-10 shooting.
Senior center Jessie Henigman had seven points, a game-high
nine rebounds, and three blocked shots before
fouling out in the final minutes. She finished the
season with a school record 101 blocked shots,
giving her 272 for her career. She will go into the
record book next season as the 15th most
prolific shot blocker in NCAA II history.
Petersen had 10 points on 4-of-7 shooting from the
field, including 2-of-3 from three-point range.
Senior point guard Amy Bantz scored five points, handed out six
assists and grabbed six rebounds in her final game.
Bantz played the entire season with a torn ACL which
she suffered in a preseason scrimmage.
MSU Billings shot 36.9 percent from the field in the
game, including 9-of-20 from three point range. The
Yellowjackets were a perfect 8-of-8 from the free
throw line in the second half and made 92.9 percent
of their attempts from the charity stripe. Seattle
Pacific finished the game with a 43.9 percent field
goal percentage. The Falcons only hit 63.9 percent
of their free throw attempts, but outscored MSUB
23-13 from the line.
Box Score |
