VERMILLION, S.D.—South Dakota women's basketball completed the sweep of defending Summit League champion Western Illinois in phenomenal fashion on Thursday night as the Coyotes topped the Leathernecks 92-81 inside the Sanford Coyote Sports Center.
The Coyotes are riding a 12-game winning streak and hold onto a perfect Summit League record through nine games.
Stepping onto the court were the league's top defense in South Dakota (18-5, 9-0 Summit League) facing off against the league's top offense in Western Illinois (16-7, 6-3 Summit).
"Tonight was a crazy game of runs against a talented team," said USD head coach
Dawn Plitzuweit. "Western Illinois can flat-out score and they made some adjustments in the second half that impacted the game. I was happy with our ability to make plays down the stretch and stay together when we faced a stretch of adversity in the fourth quarter."
Five Coyotes scored in double figures in South Dakota's highest-scoring game of the season.
Junior guard
Jaycee Bradley led the way by tying her season high of 21 points. Senior guard
Jasmine Trimboli missed just one shot, finishing 7-of-8 from the floor for 17 points. Bradley and Trimboli both tallied four assists and four rebounds each.
Senior guard
Kate Liveringhouse accumulated 15 points and six rebounds in 14 minutes of action. She was 7-of-10 from the floor.
Sophomore guards
Madison McKeever and
Ciara Duffy added 14 and 13 points, respectively. McKeever had four assists, four rebounds and four steals. Duffy had seven rebounds and a pair of assists.
While she did not reach double-digits in scoring for the first time in six games, junior guard
Allison Arens' posted an impressively well-rounded stat sheet. She tallied eight points, seven rebounds, six assists, a career high six blocks and three steals. Arens set South Dakota's season high for blocked shots in a game on her own tonight as the Coyotes had not blocked more than three in a contest previously.
Comparatively, Western Illinois had 20-point games from junior guard Taylor Higginbotham and senior guard Emily Clemens. Higginbotham scored 28 points and grabbed six rebounds while Clemens added 21 points with four assists. Senior guard Morgan Blumer was the third Leatherneck in double figures with 13 points.
Western Illinois led early, but a pair of 3-point baskets by Bradley and Duffy put USD up by five and the Coyotes never relinquished the lead.
South Dakota scored the first 10 points of the second quarter and used a 15-3 run in the first five minutes to open their lead. The Leathernecks hit just five of 19 attempted arc shots in the first half as the Coyotes led 42-27 at the break.
Western Illinois crawled back to within 3-points with 7:21 remaining in the game. The Leathernecks had erased a 21-point lead held by the Coyotes by using a 24-6 run over six minutes.
After trading a few baskets, the Coyotes began their own 17-3 run with eight points from Bradley. Bradley converted a 3-pointer off an offensive rebound from McKeever and followed it up with an old-fashioned 3-point play during the run. South Dakota hung onto its lead through the remaining two minutes of the game.
South Dakota shot at a 56.3 percent (36-64) clip from the floor and made 50 percent (13-of-26) outside the arc. After averaging 27 percent at the halftime horn, Western Illinois bounced back in the second half to average 44.8 percent (30-of-67) for the game. The Leathernecks made 14-of-36 threes.
The Coyotes combined for 21 assists in the game, just shy of their season-best 24 assists compiled in Macomb last month.
The Coyotes host North Dakota State at 1 p.m. Saturday inside the Sanford Coyote Sports Center. Saturday's game is Pink Day with the women's basketball team sporting pink jerseys and encouraging fans in attendance to sport pink attire.
