MITCHELL — In a battle of Great Plains Athletic Conference women’s basketball programs chasing prime position for the postseason tournament, Jamestown stayed one step ahead on Wednesday night.
The Jimmies built a 14-point first half lead and never relinquished it at the Corn Palace in a 66-58 win over Dakota Wesleyan.
DWU finished the game shooting 32.8%, including 25.8% in the second half on 8-for-31 attempts. Coming into Wednesday night, DWU shot at least 41% in each of its last seven games, which DWU won six of those and lost the seventh in overtime to No. 4 Dordt.
The loss to Jamestown was DWU’s first when shooting below 40%, making them now 4-1 in those games this season. The Tigers have a habit of finding a way to win when they’re not at their best but the Jimmies didn’t allow it on this occasion, completing a season sweep after a 71-64 victory in North Dakota in November.
“It’s one of those games where we just weren’t very good,” DWU coach Jason Christensen said. “Defensively, we were good. To hold this team to 66 points, we’ll take that. We just didn’t score and that was the game. The shooting percentage wasn’t very good and down the stretch, we got looks but we’ve got to be able to hit some shots.”
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Five-foot-six senior guard Kia Tower led the way for the Jimmies (18-5, 13-4 GPAC), scoring a season-high 25 points. No other Jamestown player was in double figures. Jamestown led the game 38-30 at halftime.
DWU (16-7, 11-6 GPAC) had four players in double figures, paced by 13 each from Rylee Rosenquist and Jada Campbell. Matti Reiner had 11 points and Morgan Edelman had 10 points and 11 rebounds from her point-guard position. Campbell also had nine rebounds and six blocks, which tied the DWU single-game record set by Randi Morgan in 2003 and 2004.
The Tigers also finished 14-for-20 at the free throw line but missed five in the second half when they were trying to climb back into the game.
The first matchup between the two teams was dominated by Hannah DeMars, scoring 32 points. DeMars was relatively quiet on Wednesday, scoring just nine points.
“The goal was to keep those two to 40 points and together they had 34, so overall, we were OK with that,” Christensen said. “We lost (Tower) a few times late and that hurt us. That’s two first-team All-Americans on their side, so you give them some credit.”
Tigers entered the night a game out of the No. 4 slot in the GPAC standings, tied with Concordia, while Jamestown was tied with Briar Cliff for No. 2 in the standings. After both Northwestern and Concordia won on Wednesday, the Tigers are in the No. 6 slot.
DWU heads to Omaha, Nebraska on Saturday, Feb. 4 for a 2 p.m. matinee with conference foe College of Saint Mary in the team’s penultimate road game.
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