MITCHELL, S.D. (vikings.com)\u00a0 \u2013 The Valley City State women’s basketball team rallied from a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit to take a late lead on the defending national champions Tuesday night, but the Vikings could not hold off Dakota Wesleyan down the stretch.<\/p>\n
Dierra Diegel<\/a>‘s 3-pointer gave the No. 16-ranked Vikings a 51-49 lead with 2:33 remaining, but No. 2-ranked Dakota Wesleyan finished the game with an 11-4 run to pick up a 60-55 victory.<\/p>\n Valley City State drops to 1-1 overall this season. Tuesday was the season opener for the Tigers, who won last year’s NAIA Division II National Championship.<\/p>\n Dakota Wesleyan led 17-14 after an entertaining first quarter Tuesday,\u00a0and then built a 31-20 halftime lead and a 40-30 lead entering the fourth quarter. The Vikings came storming back in the fourth, scoring on their first four possessions as part of an 11-0 run to take a\u00a041-40 advantage. It was VCSU’s first lead since going up 8-7 less than two minutes into the game.<\/p>\n The Tigers tied the game at 41-41 on a free throw with 5:53 remaining, and from there the battle was on. The teams were tied at 43-43 and 45-45 before Hannah Schlecht<\/a> gave the Vikings a 48-47 lead on a 3-pointer with 3:20 to go. After Dakota Wesleyan went up 49-48 with two free throws, Diegel hit her 3-pointer for a 51-49 Viking lead.<\/p>\n It was the last lead the Vikings would have. Dakota Wesleyan’s Rylie Osthus scored the next eight points \u2013 including six on free throws \u2013 to propel the Tigers to the 60-55 victory. <\/span><\/p>\n Valley City State shot 35 percent overall (18-51), 29 percent on 3’s (5-17) and 74 percent at the line (14-19). The Tigers finished at 38 percent overall (18-48), 18 percent on 3’s (2-11) and 88 percent at the line (22-25).<\/p>\n VCSU finished with 15 turnovers, seven assists and five steals. Dakota Wesleyan turned it over 12 times and had 11 assists and seven steals. The Vikings held a 32-30 advantage in rebounds, including an 8-4 edge on the offensive glass.<\/p>\n Alli Vandal<\/a> led the Vikings with 13 points before fouling out late in the fourth quarter. Mackenzie Huber<\/a> finished with 11 points and eight rebounds. Hannah Schlecht<\/a> scored 11 points, going 3-for-5 on 3-pointers. She also pulled down five rebounds and had two steals. Katie Williams scored eight points and finished with five rebounds and three assists.<\/p>\n Osthus led all scorers with 18 points for Dakota Wesleyan. She was one of four Tigers to reach double figures.<\/p>\n Up next: <\/strong>Valley City State is back on the road this weekend with games Friday at Dordt College and Saturday at No. 8 Northwestern College.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dakota Wesleyan 60 \u00a0VCSU 55 MITCHELL, S.D. (vikings.com)\u00a0 \u2013 The Valley City State women’s basketball team rallied from a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit to take a late lead on the defending national champions Tuesday night, but the Vikings could not hold off Dakota Wesleyan down the stretch. Dierra Diegel‘s 3-pointer gave […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14212,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-156760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=156760"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":156770,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156760\/revisions\/156770"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=156760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=156760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=156760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}