VERMILLION, S.D.—South Dakota continued to play terrific team basketball at home and topped North Dakota 79-67 Thursday inside the Sanford Coyote Sports Center.
It was the Coyotes' 14
th consecutive win in the series and the 43
rd consecutive home win for South Dakota against Summit League opponents dating back to January of 2017.
Grace Larkins scored a game-high 21 points to lead five South Dakota players who scored in double figures.
Alexi Hempe had 14 second-quarter points on 5-of-5 shooting.
Nicole Avila-Ambrosi and
Carley Duffney had 12 points apiece off the Coyotes' bench.
Macy Guebert chipped in 10 points.
But more so Thursday was South Dakota's defense, particularly regarding Summit League scoring leader and North Dakota guard Kacie Borowicz. She led the Fighting Hawks with 18 points, but needed 18 shots to get there. Borowicz was forced into five turnovers and had her shot sent back three times.
Much of the credit goes to Guebert for the 1-on-1 assignment, but help on entry passes and general havoc was created by Avila-Ambrosi who had a career-high seven steals to go with two blocks on a night she went 4-of-5 from 3-point range. That's the most steals since Allison Arens had seven against North Dakota back in 2019. It's a feat that's happened now six times since 2000.
North Dakota (9-5, 2-2 Summit) was held to its fewest point tally since late November and was outrebounded for the third time in its last 10 games. That's saying something for a Coyote team that played without senior starter
Jeniah Ugofsky, the team's third-leading rebounder this season. Ugofsky was out with an injury, but Hempe had eight rebounds and Avila-Ambrosi totaled six. Freshman
Walker Demers started in Ugofsky's place and worked with Duffney to pick up the defense in the post.
"I was really proud of our effort tonight," said USD head coach
Kayla Karius. "Our starting lineup got shaken up and we were able to give Walker her first start, which is really well deserved.
"Our best offense was getting stops and then getting out and running in transition. We were aggressive on the defensive end, we were flying around and we were really active and that made it tough on them. Winning the rebounding battle was really important to us and something we talked about quite a bit."
The separation in the score came on a 14-0 Coyote run to end the first half after the teams were knotted at 34-34 with just under four minutes to go. It started with a Hempe 3 and her 14 points all came in a quarter in which USD outscored UND 31-13. Avila-Ambrosi had two 3-pointers in the frame and three triples in the first half.
"Nicole had a fantastic game," said Karius. "
Cassidy Carson played really well. It's fun to see their confidence grow and obviously our bench made a big difference tonight."
North Dakota cut the lead to six four minutes into the second half, but drew no closer the rest of the way. Guebert answered back with a 3 and Duffney scored back-to-back buckets to quickly push the lead back to 13. South Dakota held North Dakota without a field goal until the 5:29 mark of the fourth quarter to put the game away. Avila-Ambrosi had four steals in the fourth quarter and North Dakota had two field goals.
South Dakota, one of the best 3-point shooting teams in the nation percentage wise, was 11-of-28 from three-point range against a team that entered tops in the league in defending the 3. North Dakota was 5-of-16 from beyond the arc.
South Dakota (8-8, 4-1) moved into second place in the Summit standings on a night where all four home teams were victorious. The Coyotes host North Dakota State Saturday at 1 p.m. The Bison (9-5, 3-1) suffered their first Summit defeat in a 94-63 loss at first-place South Dakota State Thursday.
