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Western Illinois University Athletics

Summit League Tournament 2018
Dave Eggen/Inertia
51
Western Illinois WIU 22-9
80
Winner South Dakota State SDSU 25-6
Western Illinois WIU
22-9
51
Final
80
South Dakota State SDSU
25-6
Winner
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 3 4 F
Western Illinois WIU 14 10 12 15 51
South Dakota State SDSU 27 26 18 9 80

Game Recap: Women's Basketball | | WIU Athletic Communications

Western Illinois Drops Semifinal Contest To South Dakota State

Morgan Blumer paced Western with 14 points.

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — The No. 3-seeded Western Illinois Fighting Leathernecks fell, 80-51, to the No. 2-seeded South Dakota State Jackrabbits in the semifinal round of The Summit League Championships Monday.
 
Morgan Blumer finished with a team-high 14 points, just three shy of becoming a 1,000-point scorer. She went 4-for-8 from downtown, and added four rebounds and a pair of steals.
 
Taylor Higginbotham added 10 points.

"Obviously, that wasn't much fun," said head coach JD Gravina. "They are an incredible team and I don't know what it is about them that brings the worst out of us and the best out of them. That's on me as much as it is on the team. There's not much else to say. Our kids kept playing hard. It's just one of those games that nothing was going our way.
 
"They hit threes, they scored in the post, they scored mid-range jumpers and they scored on four different defenses we played against them. When you play a top-50 RPI team you have to be at your best. It just didn't seem like we could quite get there against them. We were a little indecisive offensively and maybe a little afraid to make mistakes in the beginning."
 
Trailing 13-4 at the first media timeout, back-to-back threes by Higginbotham and Michelle Farrow, along with a pair of Olivia Kaufmann free throws cut the Jackrabbit lead to five, 17-12, with 2:48 to go. The game stayed within a single-digit difference until the final minute of quarter, and after Blumer drained a long three-pointer to start the second frame, the Jackrabbits pulled ahead with a 20-3 run over a 6:59 span.
 
At the half, SDSU held a 53-24 lead.

South Dakota State extended its lead to 71-36 at the end of the third quarter.

Western Illinois caps its regular season and Summit League Tournament run with a 22-9 overall record. The Leathernecks will find out if they qualify for postseason play Monday, March 12.

   
 
 
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