Feb. 26—JAMESTOWN — The University of Jamestown overcame a slow start to get a dominant 90-74 win over Dickinson State in the first round of the North Star Athletic Association Conference Tournament on Wednesday, Feb. 26, at Harold Newman Arena.
Multiple Jimmies had big games with two finishing in double digits, Kate Cordes and Megan Oswald. While Oswald came two points away from setting a new career high, finishing with 11 points, Cordes firmly put her name in the record books. Cordes finished with a new career-high 36 points, good for a tie for third-most points in a game in program history alongside Taylor Hammer and Guili Varriano.
“It’s cool. I’m happy we got the win,” Cordes said. “The win’s cooler, just really looking forward to Saturday and hopefully bringing that confidence into there. I haven’t had great games at Mayville yet this year so looking forward to Saturday for sure.”
The teams traded the lead back and forth in what was a competitive first quarter which saw multiple ties and lead changes. The Jimmies finished the quarter with Sam Paulsen at the stripe where she hit both to give her team a 19-18 lead heading into the second. The Jimmies struggled shooting from three in the first quarter, going 1-for-12.
The Jimmies (18-9) heated up in a hurry in the second quarter and it was spurred on by their ability to hit the three ball. Early in the second quarter, the Jimmies’ Kate Cordes splashed a three to push her team in front 22-20. The Blue Hawks (8-19) responded to take a 25-22 lead but the responded with a run to take a 27-25 lead. After the Hawks tied the game up at 27, the Jimmies went on a run to take a 46-36 lead into the half.
In the second quarter, the Jimmies shot 6-for-11 from three to finish the opening half shooting 7-for-23 from long range.
One of the biggest keys in the first half for the Jimmies was getting the Blue Hawks’ Samantha Oase into foul trouble with the team’s scoring scorer picking up her third foul early in the second quarter.
“It definitely helps us,” Sankey said. “We just wanted to be aggressive. We just wanted to make sure we were going to the rim. We wanted to be playing downhill and get into the lane, passing, driving, it didn’t really matter, but we wanted to get to the rim. Her fouls resulted from that but the aggressiveness is what we were focusing on.”
The Jimmies opened the third quarter with a Kate Busek three to make it 49-36 and they started the quarter on fire hitting their first three field goals with their lead going out to 60-40 during that stretch. The Jimmies kept it up through the remainder of the frame to take a 70-53 lead into the fourth quarter.
The Jimmies stretched the lead out to 72-53 early in the fourth and midway through the frame, Cordes splashed a three to give her a new career high of 34 points. The junior guard was not done though hitting the runner to give her team the 86-70 lead and push her total out to 36 points.
The Jimmies finished the contest shooting 50.8% from the field, 37.8% from three and 75% from the free throw line. The Blue Hawks finished the game shooting 47.5% from the field, 35.7% from three and 76.5% from the free throw line.
The Jimmies are back in action at 11 a.m. on Saturday, March 1, when they go to Mayville State.
DSU 74, UJ 90
DSU: 18 18 17 21 — 74
UJ: 19 27 24 20 — 90
