St. Peter, Minn. – The Gustavus Adolphus women’s basketball team used a big second half to propel itself to a 69-49 win over Macalester College on Wednesday night at Gus Young Court. With a 33-33 halftime score, the Gusties began the second half with a 16-0 scoring-run that the Scots could not recover from. With the win, Gustavus maintains sole possession of third place in the conference standings at 17-7 overall and 11-6 in the MIAC. Macalester drops to 3-21 overall and 0-17 in the MIAC with the loss.
“It was a tale of two halves for us,” said Head Coach Laurie Kelly. “We didn’t come out with the intensity and effort that we did last Saturday and looked a little lethargic defensively. Macalester did a great job of getting good looks and making shots early. I felt like they out-hustled us in the opening half – we simply didn’t have a whole lot of great things to talk about at halftime.”
Thanks in large part to a 5-for-7 three-point shooting effort that was led by Lauren Clamage who went 3-for-4 from beyond the arc, Macalester was able to close a six point gap on two occasions and not let the Gusties build momentum and extend their lead. Although the Scots led 29-25 with 4:33 left in the half, Gustavus used an 8-4 run to finish the frame and send the game into the break tied at 33-33.
Despite the sluggish start, Gustavus picked up its intensity on the defensive end right away in the second half. By the 11:21 mark, the Gusties had built a 16-point lead (49-33) and had not allowed Macalester a single point. It took until 11:05 that Leah Gray was able to stop the bleeding and hit a jumper from within the paint to put the Scots on the scoreboard. Gustavus didn’t look back from that point on and led by as many as 24 points (61-37) with 5:27 to play.
Kelly gives a great deal of credit to her team for turning the game around so early in the second half. “We came out and set the tone right out of the gate and were able to pull away early,” she said. “Rebounding was a major part of that along with an increased intensity on the defensive end. We held them scoreless for nearly ten minutes to start the half, which was the difference in the end.”
Gustavus finished with a 57-to-28 rebounding advantage – the team’s best rebounding margin of the season. Leading the charge on the glass was Hannah Howard (So., St. Paul, Minn.) who brought down the team’s highest total this year with 19 (12 defensive).
Mikayla Miller (Fy., Goodhue, Minn.) was the only Gustie to finish in double-figures with 15 points on 5-of-17 shooting. Behind her was Howard with seven points (3-5 FG), and Stephanie Klockmann (Fy., Brownton, Minn.) with seven (3-5 FG) to go along with six rebounds.
As a team, Gustavus shot 37.5-percent (24-64) from the field, 21.4-percent (3-14) from three, and 69.2-percent (18-26) at the line. Macalester shot 31.5-percent (17-54) from the field, 38.5-percent (5-13) from three, and 66.7-percent (10-15) at the line.
“It’s always great to win on your home court, but there are definitely aspects of tonight’s game that we need to sharpen up as we head into a big season-finale on Saturday,” said Kelly about takeaways from tonight’s outing. “Saint Ben’s will be coming into our gym fighting for its playoff life, and we’re going to need to be ready to battle for 40 minutes.”
The Gustavus women’s basketball team will cap the regular season on Saturday, Feb. 21 with a 1:00 p.m. game against the College of Saint Benedict.