NORTHFIELD, Minn. – The St. Olaf College women's basketball team shot a season-high 57.1 percent from the field on its way to completing a sweep of Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) foe Bethel University with a 76-65 Senior Day win on Saturday afternoon at Skoglund Center.
St. Olaf (12-11, 9-11 MIAC) completed its first regular-season sweep of Bethel (12-11, 12-8 MIAC) since the 2012-13 season by hitting 24 of its 42 field-goal attempts and recording 18 assists on its 24 made shots. The Oles' field-goal percentage of 57.1 percent was the team's highest since shooting 57.6 percent (19-for-33) in a 77-47 loss to Gustavus Adolphus College on Jan. 27, 2018.
Before the game, St. Olaf honored its senior class of
Grace Hegland,
Sophie Olmen,
Cassie Fix,
Rachel Kelly, and
Sarah Howdeshell and their families on the court for their dedication to the program over the last four seasons.
With the win, the Oles are two games back of St. Catherine University for the sixth and final spot in the MIAC Playoffs with two games remaining. St. Olaf needs to win its final two games and have the Wildcats drop their last two. The two teams play on the final date of the regular season and the Oles hold the tiebreaker if the two teams are tied by virtue of winning both head-to-head matchups.
On her Senior Day, Kelly had 26 points, 11 rebounds, and six assists while shooting 9-for-13 from the field for her third-straight double-double and her seventh of the season. Hegland was 5-for-8 from the field and 6-for-6 from the free-throw line on her way to a 17-point, eight-rebound afternoon, while sophomore
Paige Yagodinski had 16 points, six rebounds, and five assists while going 5-for-8 from the field and 5-for-5 from the charity stripe.
Kelly's 26-point afternoon saw her rise three spots to fourth in program history with 1,041 points for her career. She also jumped up a spot to second in the St. Olaf record book with 422 made field goals and cracked the top 10 in rebounding with 535 for her career.
Bethel got 10 points from its bench – eight from Autumn Earney – in the opening quarter but shot just 33.3 percent (5-for-15) in the quarter, as St. Olaf took a 16-14 lead after one. A three-point play by Kelly capped a 9-1 start for the Oles over the first 3:24 and St. Olaf led 14-4 midway through the quarter before the Royals clawed back within two after 10 minutes.
The second quarter featured six lead changes and five ties before the teams went into the locker room tied at 30-30. Yagodinski scored five-straight points in the span of 30 seconds late in the quarter before Anna Garfield hit a layup in the closing seconds to knot the score at the break. Earney led all scorers with 11 points in the first half, including going 3-for-6 from three-point range.
St. Olaf closed the third quarter on a 9-3 run to take a 48-44 lead into the fourth. With the Royals up 41-39, Kelly gave the Oles a lead they would not relinquish the rest of the way with a three-pointer with 1:48 left in the third to ignite the 9-3 run that concluded with Kelly finding Yayodinski for a transition layup after a steal by Fix.
In the fourth, St. Olaf shot 8-for-11 (72.7 percent) from the field and led by as many as the final margin of 11 after a 28-point final 10 minutes. Bethel got within two, 52-50, two minutes into the quarter, but the Oles responded with an 11-3 run to open up a 10-point lead with four minutes remaining. St. Olaf hit 11-of-12 free throws in the final quarter and had a season-high 24 makes in 30 tries (80.0 percent) at the line for the game.
Next up for the Oles is a trip north to Duluth to take on the College of St. Scholastica on Wednesday, Feb. 15 at 7 p.m.
