SEWARD, Neb. – The No. 4 Concordia women’s basketball team showed no setbacks in its opening game of the 2015-16 season. The Bulldogs defeated No. 24 Mayville State University 109-79 Friday evening inside Walz Arena. Four different Bulldogs scored in double digits in the victory.
Head coach Drew Olson said, “I had no idea what to expect just because we have such an inexperienced group and they’ve been waiting to play for so long. All these other teams have played three or four games. So I really didn’t know what to expect. I thought we came out and looked nervous but we played really well tonight.”
The game was the first contest for the Bulldogs who are now 1-0 on the season while the Comets suffered their first loss and drop to 4-1 this year.
“We’re going to get up and down and shoot a lot of threes,” Olson stated. “We just have to shoot well and defend well. I thought we did a nice job of that, especially in the first half.”
Olson’s squad shot .531 (43-81) from the field and .455 (15-33) from behind the arc. The team grabbed 40 rebounds and snatched up 15 steals.
Sophomore Brenleigh Daum said, “We’ve had a long preseason and we were all really ready to get out there and show what we were doing in practice. Coach has a lot of confidence in us and we have confidence in ourselves and we were all ready and gunning to go. This year we don’t have those key players so we knew we had to be a really big team this year and create open shots for our teammates.”
Daum led the Bulldogs with 19 points. The sophomore also grabbed two rebounds and one steal. Also scoring in double digits for the squad were Quinn Wragge (16), Becky Mueller (15) and Sydney Feller (12). The rebound column was extremely balanced with every Bulldog grabbing at least one rebound and Aubri Bro leading the pack with five.
The only time the Bulldogs did not have the lead in the game was 50 seconds into the contest when the Comets drained a 3-pointer. The Bulldogs quickly answered back to give themselves a 4-3 lead and never looked back.
During the first quarter, CUNE took a nine point lead, 27-18, outshooting MSU from the field, 55 percent to 44.4 percent. The end of the first frame saw a 9-2 Bulldog run, each bucket coming from a different Bulldog.
Concordia started the second quarter without skipping a beat, scoring 12 straight in less than two minutes of play. After a half of play the ‘Dogs led 61-33 and owned a .543 shooting percentage. The 34 points scored in the second quarter was the most scored in a 10 minute period during the game.
In the third quarter, the Bulldogs tacked on an additional 27 while leading by at least 28 tallies for the entire frame. The shooting percentage of .507 from the field during the third frame was the lowest that Concordia saw during the contest.
Junior Carissa Gutz scored the 100th points for the ‘Dogs from the paint half way through the final period. The 109 points scored by CUNE was three short from tying last season’s high score of 112 vs York College.
“We played twice them (University of Jamestown) last year,” Olson noted on his squad’s next opponent. “We ended their season last year and they’re looking forward to this game. I know they lost to Doane but I bet a lot of their players looked past Doane thinking about us and I know they’re going to be ready…it’s going to be a tough game tomorrow.”
The No. 4 Concordia women’s basketball team will face the No. 6 University of Jamestown Jimmies Saturday, Nov. 7. Tip-off for the Bulldogs’ last Cattle Classic tilt will be at 1 p.m. inside Walz Arena.