Nov. 19—JAMESTOWN — The University of Jamestown women’s basketball team had an early season preview of what next year will look like and they passed the test with flying colors getting an 81-64 win on Tuesday, Nov. 19, at Harold Newman Arean.
The Jimmies took a 20-15 lead into the second quarter with fouls telling a big part of the story. In the opening frame, the Jimmies had six team fouls and the Beavers went 5-for-5 from the line. Meanwhile, the Beavers had two team fouls and the Jimmies went 3-for-4 from the line. The Beavers relied heavily on senior Sydney Gustavsson in the frame as the Mandan native had nine of her team’s 15 points.
The Beavers brought it to within three points early in the second quarter at 22-19 but the Jimmies responded with a Jailyn Martinson and one play pushing the lead out to 25-19. From there the Jimmies finished the quarter on a 16-6 run to head into the break up 41-25.
The biggest difference in the opening half came from beyond the arc with the Jimmies shooting 5-13 and the Beavers 0-for-13 from three. In total, the Jimmies shot 47% from the field while the Beavers shot 29% from the field. The Jimmies’ defense showed up forcing seven turnovers and scoring 12 points off those turnovers. On the other side, the Beavers scored six points off eight Jimmies giveaways.
The Beavers ended their three-point drought in the third quarter when Lara Dobbins hit a three to trim their deficit to 42-28. However, the Jimmies kept punching back taking a 58-39 lead into the fourth. In the third, the Jimmies only gave up back-to-back points once in the third quarter with the Beavers going on a quick 5-0 run to trim their deficit down to 43-30.
The Jimmies did enough in the fourth quarter to get the lopsided win. The Jimmies led for most of the game with the Beavers’ last lead coming at 4-3.
“That’s fun, playing in front, playing neck and neck we’re alright with that,” Jimmies head coach Thad Sankey said. “We’re really … if it’s an eight point game, we’re trying to make it a 10 point game. So It’s good, there is a comfort zone but I like the way that we kept pushing our lead throughout the whole game.”
The Jimmies’ leading scorer was Hannah Hagel who had 14 points and seven rebounds.
“I think just rebound hard, play together, that was about it, play fast,” Hagel said about her team’s offensive game plan.
The Jimmies’ margin of victory meant they could go down their bench with 15 players making an appearance. One of those players was freshman Hali Savela whose older sister Macy played for the Jimmies from 2019 to 2022.
“It’s awesome. We’ll take every Savela scoring here,” Sankey said. “We’ll take it. It’s awesome. We loved having Macy on our team, we love seeing her around. It’s really cool and it is fun. Hali started coming to our shootarounds when she was a seventh grader when Macy was on our team as a freshman. So we’ve been seeing Hali here since then and we’re gonna see see a lot more of her for the next four years.”
The Jimmies are back in action at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 30, when they host Midland University.
MSU 64, UJ 81
MSU: 15 10 14 25 — 64
UJ: 20 21 17 23 — 81
Scoring leaders:
MSU: Sydney Gustavsson 17, Lara Dobbins 13, Lorelei McIver 7
UJ: Hannah Hagel 14, Kate Busek 13, Kate Cordes 12
Assists leaders:
MSU: Gustavsson 2, Emma Mogen 2, Dobbins 1
UJ: Cordes 6, Megan Oswald 4, Hagel 3
Leading rebounders:
MSU: Dobbins 7, Mogen 6, Jaime Skeggs 4
UJ: Oswald 8, Hagel 7, Busek 6
