The Wayne State Wildcats followed the hot shooting of their top scorers Ashton Yossi and Jordan Spencer to their ninth straight victory, as they defeated the Minot State Beavers 81-71 Friday night in North Dakota.

The game was tightly contested in the first half with 9 lead changes. Wayne State took the lead going into halftime 37-34.

The game stayed close for part of the second half until WSC’s Ashton Yossi ripped off eight points in a row, en route to a 15-3 run by the Wildcats.

By the end of the run, the Wildcats had a 65-51 lead with five minutes to play in the game.

The Wildcats held a game-high lead of 17 points with two minutes to play, eventually finishing the night with the ten-point win.

Senior guard Yossi led the Wildcats with 22 points and 6 assists. Senior forward Jordan Spencer collected 18 points and 7 rebounds and junior guard Sadie Murren finished with 13 points and 4 assists.

Both Yossi and Spencer jumped into the top ten all-time scoring list for Wayne State. Yossi sits at ninth on the list with 1,290 points, while Spencer at tenth has 1,284 points.

Wayne State shot 50 percent from the field, going 27-54, and knocked down 13 three pointers in the contest.

Head Coach Chris Kielsmeier said of the victory with KTCH sports director Aaron Scheffler the key to the second half success was simply executing better on offense.

“We hit a lot of shots,” Kielsmeier said. “We ran some sets and got some stuff on the inside opened up.”

Minot State’s leading scorer was Katie Hardy with 17 points. The Beavers also shot 50 percent from the field, which was a concern for Kielsmeier and his defense.

“We didn’t defend very well tonight at all, made a lot of mistakes defensively,” Kielsmeier said. “We’ll need to play a lot better tomorrow night than what we did tonight.”

The Wildcats then traveled to Bismark to take on the University of Mary and stretch their win streak to double digits.

The Wildcats were successful with a tough fought 68-60 victory to close out their North Dakota road trip.

The win improved the team to 19-3 overall and 13-3 in conference play.
The quest for win number ten in a row was in doubt in the finals seconds of the first half as the Wildcats trailed 31-21. Murren hit a half-court three point buzzer-beating shot to give the Wildcats much needed momentum going into the locker room after only hitting eight shots previously in the first half.

Kielsmeier said the shot “probably the biggest of the year because it swung the momentum.”

“It allowed our kids to relax and to realize that there’s not a cover on the basket, we can make shots tonight,” he said.

Wayne State then used that momentum to take control in the second half. They ended up outscoring the University of Mary 44-29 in the second half.

The Wildcats used a 20-5 run in the second half to take a 50-40 lead, and then never looked back en-route to their 68-60 victory.

Leading the way for the ‘Cats in scoring was Jordan Spencer with 19 points and 7 rebounds and 5 steals, Sadie Murren followed up with 13 points of her own along with 5 assists and 4 steals. Freshman forward Maggie Schulte poured in 10 points while collecting 6 rebounds and blocking 4 shots and Ashton Yossi poured in 9 points with 6 rebounds.

Wayne State again struggled on offense only shooting 37 percent from the field and going 5-23 from the three point line. The Wildcats did win the rebounding battle against the Marauders with a 40-39 advantage.

Despite the offensive struggles Kielsmeier was proud of his players especially the effort they gave forth on a long road trip.

“I’m so proud of our players, they battled tonight and all the stuff that they do in August and September to be in great shape and to be able to handle these moments paid dividends for us tonight.” Said Kielsmeier “just such a great team performance by us in the second half after that ugliness in the first.”

The Wildcats get to stay off the bus this weekend as they play host to MSU Moorhead Friday night at 6 p.m. and Saturday against Northern State at 4 p.m. which is projected to be a battle for first place in the NSIC conference.

Wayne State 81, Minot State 71
Wayne State………………37 44-81
Minot State……………….34 37-71
WSC: Yossi 22, Spencer 18, Murren 13, Schulte 8, Niggeling 6, Ballinger 6, Nelson 5, O’Connor 3.
MSC: Hardy 17, Lester 13, Kingsbury 12, Boag 10, Denton 9, Sansaver 5, Klose 3, Haley 2.

Wayne State 68, Mary 60
Wayne State………………24 44-68
University of Mary…….….31 29-60
WSC: Spencer 19, Murren 13, Niggeling 10, Yossi 9, Ballinger 9, Schulte 4, Nelson 3, O’Connor 1.
UMC: Turner 21, Williams 14, Dietz 8, Hibbs 6, Larson 6, Weir 3, Wilkinson 2.