Box Score

Box score (HTML)  I  Box score (PDF)

KEARNEY, Neb. – The Northeastern State women's basketball team fell 61-58 to Nebraska-Kearney Wednesday night inside the Health & Sports Center.
 
The loss for the RiverHawks (10-15, 7-11 MIAA) drops them to ninth place in the conference standings with one game remaining in the regular season.
 
NSU will need to defeat Fort Hays State (at 6 pm Feb. 28 in Hays, Kan.) and have Northwest Missouri State lose at Central Missouri on March 1 in order for the RiverHawks to finish eighth in the final MIAA standings. A top-8 finish ensures NSU a home game in the first round of the MIAA Championship March 3.
 
The Lopers (9-16, 5-12 MIAA) used 18 offensive rebounds and a season-high 20 turnovers from Northeastern State to come from nine points down in the second half to earn the victory.
 
Freshman forward Mya Walker paced NSU with 19 points. She started the game 7 of 8 from the field but missed her last three shots. Junior guard Fontana Tate added 13 points, while freshman forward Che'Ron Lewis tallied 11 points.
 
NSU shot 48.9 percent (23-for-47) from the field, 28.6 percent (4-for-14) from downtown and 80 percent (8-for-10) at the line. UNK shot 29.2 percent (19-for-65) from the field, 24 percent (6-for-25) from behind the arc and 73.9 percent (17-for-23) at the free-throw line.
 
Nebraska-Kearney dominated NSU in points off turnovers (26-10), second-chance points (23-2), offensive rebounds (18-3), and fewest turnovers (11-20).
 
The Lopers were led by Amarah Williams and Shelby Zimmerman, who dominated the glass and both finished with double-doubles. Williams registered 22 points and 10 rebounds, while Zimmerman added 12 points and 10 boards. Laramey Lewis added 11 points for the home side.
 
Northeastern State jumped out to a 7-0 lead to start the game, but the Lopers quickly responded and tied the score at 7-7 by the 15:35 mark. NSU fought for a minimal 19-16 edge at 8:38, and the team used a 6-0 run to pull ahead by nine points that lasted all the way to halftime.
 
Nebraska-Kearney again quickly responded, getting to within one at 32-31 with 18:17 to play in regulation. UNK finally took its first lead of the second half at 50-48 with 7:27 remaining, and the two teams battled back and forth for the remainder of the game.
 
NSU led by four with 3:12 to play, but the Lopers would take advantage of a plethora of RiverHawks mistakes down the stretch to close on a game-winning 7-0 run.
 
Northeastern State has now lost seven-straight games on the road, which is the most since the 1998-99 season.
 
Scoring Summary
Northeastern State              30        28        58
Nebraska-Kearney              21        40        61
 
NORTHEASTERN STATE COACH RANDY GIPSON
Statement…
"It was a real tough loss tonight. Our kids played hard enough to win. It was a good game. We just made too many mistakes. The turnovers are the thing that really did us in. Our rebounding wasn't as good in the second half as we needed it to be. There were some physical mismatches that were hard to overcome. We can obviously do a lot better in that area. We don't play as physical as we need to play to rebound for 40 minutes. Offensively, we made some shots, but we just didn't take care of the ball well enough. We're at the point and time where we're working hard to win games. To come up short again is a tough deal. We just have to do what we're going to always do. We have to get our focus towards our next game and get a good game plan. We are really going to try to compete well and try to take advantage of every opportunity. Fort Hays State is a challenging team. It's going to take a fantastic effort on both ends of the floor to have a chance to beat them. We can't slip up."

-GoRiverHawksGo.com-