It was a rough weekend on the road for the Wayne State men’s and women’s basketball teams, as both suffered losses on Friday and Saturday night.
On Friday, the Wayne State women fell at MSU Moorhead in a 73-63 decision that saw the host Dragons dominated the boards to the tune of 47-26, including 20 offensive caroms.
The game was tied at 16-all after one period. Wayne State led by as many as six at 16-10 in the first after threes from Logan Hughes and Lauren Zachraias and a basket by Kassidy Pingel before the Dragons came back to forget the tie.
Wayne State led by five with 4:22 to go in the first half, but MSU came back to take a 39-35 lead at the half and Wayne State never got the lead back after that.
Zacharias led WSC with 19 points and Hughes added 11 in the losing effort.
In the men’s game, the Wildcats couldn’t keep pace with No. 25-ranked MSU Moorhead as the Dragons walked away with a 78-52 win.
The Dragons got out to a 12-2 lead to open the game and never trailed. Wayne State got within four at 14-10 after a Justin Eagins jumper midway through the half, but the Dragons followed with an 11-0 run and went to shoot 45.8 percent from the field to claim the easy win.
Jordan Janssen paced the ‘Cats with 17 points and Eagins added 13.
In Saturday action, The Wildcat women dropped a tightly-contested 66-60 decision at Northern State while the men fell 96-69 to the Huskies in action at Aberdeen, S.D.
In the women’s game, Wayne State came back from a 27-18 deficit to take a 32-31 lead into the locker room, closing the rally with a Zacharias basket in the closing seconds of the second quarter.
Wayne State led 40-39 early in the third on a Pingel 3-pointer, but Northern State took over and never trailed from that point on. Wayne State tied the game at 54-54 with 6:20 to go, but Northern went on to claim the win.
Annie Guntzel led Wayne State (9-5, 5-5 NSIC) with 15 points, Pingel added 14 and Zacharias had a double-double with 12 points and 10 boards.
Northern State was on fire from the outside, scorching the nets for 16 3-pointers — the most ever allowed by a Wildcat team — to pull away with the easy win.
Wayne State had a 13-0 run early in the game to take a 15-6 lead, but Northern State rallied and finished the first half going 9-of-17 from long range to build a 47-36 lead at the break.
The Wildcats couldn’t keep pace in the second half, as Northern State hit seven more trifectas and walked away with the 27-point win, dropping the Wildcat men to 11-5 overall and 6-4 in the NSIC.
Janssen led Wayne State with 15 points while Eagins and Nate Mohr had 14 apiece. Cody McCullough led the Wildcats with eight rebounds.
The Wildcat teams hope to get healthy at home next weekend as they host Minot State on Friday and University of Mary on Saturday. Games start at 5:30 p.m. on Friday and 3:30 p.m. on Saturday.
