By TOMMY REZAC
St. Joseph Post
MARYVILLE - The Northwest Missouri State women's basketball team held previously unbeaten Missouri Western to a season-low in points and prevailed in a 49-46 defensive battle at Bearcat Arena Saturday.
It took almost four minutes for the first made basket for either team. Northwest's Jayna Green finally hit the net with 6:17 left in the first quarter, but Western's Trinity Knapp answered with back-to-back buckets for Missouri Western to start a 9-0 run.
Northwest (9-2, 4-1 MIAA) responded with a 16-11 second quarter to take a 23-20 halftime lead.
The third quarter was very back-and-forth, and Missouri Western managed to tie the game a couple of times, but the Griffons (9-1, 4-1 MIAA) never managed to grab a lead in the second half.
Connie Clarke pulled the Griffons to within 47-46 with 41.6 seconds left after making a pair of free throws, and a defensive stop put the ball back in Western's hands with 12.1 seconds to go.
Knapp missed a go-ahead jump shot inside the final 10 seconds, and the whistle blew as both teams battled for the rebound. Camille Evans was called for a foul, but even after a pair of made free throws by Northwest's Paityn Rau, the Griffons had one last chance to send the game to overtime with 2.2 on the clock.
A quick timeout advanced the ball to the near side of the court, and former Bearcat Jaelyn Haggard was able to find an opening in the swarming defense, but her last-second three-pointer was just short and bounced off the rim as the buzzer sounded.
Missouri Western shot 29.5 percent (13-44) on the afternoon, with Knapp leading all scorers with 15 - a new career-high for her. Northwest Missouri shot at a 25.8 percent (16-62) clip, including 7-of-29 from beyond the arc.
Missouri Western was 2-of-8 from three on the afternoon.
Jayna Green grabbed a game-high 10 rebounds to go along with six points, four blocks and three assists for Northwest. Peyton Kelderman led the Bearcats in scoring with nine points.
The Griffons close out the 2021 calendar year on Wednesday, Dec. 29, with a 1 p.m. game against University of Saint Mary at MWSU Fieldhouse.
The Northwest women host Missouri Southern on New Year's Day.
Trevor Hudgins drops 36, Northwest shoots lights out against Griffons
No. 2 Northwest (10-1, 5-0 MIAA) team shot a single-game school record 72.9% from the field in a 101-63 rout over Missouri Western Saturday.
The Bearcats won their ninth straight game overall and their 19th straight against their rival Griffons. Western (8-5, 4-1 MIAA) saw a six-game win streak come to an end.
Northwest broke its single-game field goal percentage record by making 35-of-48 field goals in the victory. It's the highest single-game field goal percentage for an NCAA Division II team this season.
The Bearcats shot 80.0% from the floor in the second half, making 20-of-25 field goal attempts in the final 20 minutes.
"You could say this, that or the other, but at the end of the day, sometimes you just make shots," Northwest coach Ben McCollum said. "I'd have to see the film, but we pry just made a lot of shots. Got the shots we were looking for and were able to make them."
Junior Trevor Hudgins, last season's DII National Player of the Year, posted a 36-point scoring effort, making 12-of-15 shots, including 4-of-6 from beyond the arc. Sophomore Luke Waters did not miss a shot as he tallied 18 points, going 6-of-6 from the field and 6-of-6 from the foul line.
"It's a result of him working with others to allow him to be who he is," McCollum said. "We allow people to be great in our system because we want to win."
"We just started going," Hudgins said. "We just started getting into the flow and offense started clicking. Shots started falling and...yeah. Saw the results."
Junior Diego Bernard tallied 14 points, three rebounds, three assists and two steals.
"We are starting to slowly find ourselves on the defensive and offensive ends," said McCollum, as he improves to 24-2 all-time against the Griffons. "It takes time. We fit our personnel into our system and we have to find our different roles. We are finding out who we are going to be defensively and offensively this year."
Leading 45-30 at the break, Northwest started the second half on a 21-8 run and took a 66-38 lead with 12:52 to play, essentially putting the game away.
Q Mays led Missouri Western with 11 points, but he spent much of the first half on the bench with three early fouls and he would eventually foul out midway through the second.
"All of the credit in the world to Northwest and their players," Missouri Western coach Will Martin said. "I mean, they showed why they're the best team in the country. You get beat like we did, there's not much more to say other than 'hats off to their team,' and there's things we could have done better offensively."
The Northwest men return to action on Dec. 29 against the University of Saint Mary. Tip is set for 2 p.m. in Bearcat Arena.
The Griffons are back in St. Joseph on the 29th for an exhibition against Friends University. Tip-off from MWSU Fieldhouse is set for 3 p.m.
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