The Minnesota Morris Cougars put together a 28-point fourth quarter to blow past the Yellowjacket’s women’s basketball team, 73-67, in the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference (UMAC) quarterfinals on Thursday, March 4.
The Yellowjackets carried a seven-point advantage on the road against the fourth-seeded Cougars into the fourth quarter, but UMM missed just eight field-goal attempts in the final 10 minutes to overcome the deficit.
Superior held leads of 17-10 after one quarter and 37-29 at halftime, but couldn’t fend off the hard charging Cougars. Lexus Eagle Chasing scored 14 of her game-high 22 points in the second half to fuel the comeback. For UWS, Kaelyn Christian (St. Michael, Minn./ St. Michael-Albertville Senior) tallied 22 points, while Mady Sanders (Lino Lakes, Minn./Centennial) recorded the ‘Jackets’ third double-double of the season with 13 points and a game-best and career-high-tying 10 rebounds.
Leading midway through the first quarter, UWS engineered a 7-0 run to take a 17-9 advantage with eight seconds remaining in the period. Four different players scored in the 4:08 stretch. Morris cut the lead to three points two separate times over the second quarter, but Bryton Kukowski (Duluth, Minn./Hermantown), Sam Parendo (Proctor, Minn./Proctor), Kaija Davies (Aitkin, Minn./ Aitkin) and Christian each helped UWS hit its next four shots for a 33-22 cushion with 3:21 remaining in the half.
The Cougars’ Haley Wollschager registered four consecutive points to slice the deficit to 44-41 with 3:30 on the clock in the third quarter before Sanders completed a three-point play and Davies canned a trey to push the lead back to 10 with less than a minute left in the period.
Eagle Chasing gave her team its first lead since the early going with a jumper that made it 64-63 with 3:09 to play. Superior cut the lead to 71-67 with 26 seconds left, but got no closer.
The Yellowjackets finish the season with a record of 4-6.
