Lady Orediggers snaps losing streak at Black Hills

With some spectacular three point shooting and good defense, the Colorado School of Mines Women’s basketball team defeated the home team, Black Hills State, by a score of 72-65. The win snapped a three game losing streak for the Lady Orediggers and moved them to 13-11 overall and 10-8 in RMAC play.

The Lady Orediggers got on the scoreboard first at 2-0 with a Taylor Helbig jump shot in the opening seconds of the game. After that first shot went in, Black Hills made a small run to take the lead 6-2, which would prove to be their largest lead of the night. Down 11-9, the Lady Orediggers recaptured the lead with a Helbig three and never relinquished it. Leading by only two points (30-28) with just under five to go in the first half, the Lady Orediggers rallied off 14 straight points including nine at the end of the half to lead 39-28 heading into the locker room.

Starting off the second half where they left off, Mines scored the first five points of the second half to take a 16 point lead at 44-28. Black Hills State was not giving up yet though as they closed the gap to 44-40 with a 12-0 run of their own. The next seven minutes were closely contested and with five to go, the 16 point lead was gone and the score was tied at 59 apiece. That was as close as Black Hills would get in the final minutes of the second stanza as Mines outscored the Yellow Jackets 13-6 to capture the 72-65 victory.

The Lady Orediggers made 11 threes on the night, a season high, in the victory shooting 39.3% from behind the arc to go along with a 42.4% overall field goal percentage on 25-59 shooting and 84.6% free throw shooting making 11 of their 13. Mines held Black Hills State to 42.9% shooting and 31.2% from three. In what was a closely contested game, the three ball and 39-31 rebounding advantage made the difference for the Orediggers.

Helbig led the team with 22 points and finished the night having shot 7-of-9 overall and 4-of-5 from behind the arc, adding three assists in her 38 minutes of play. Tory Langas made all five of her free throws on the night en route to scoring 15 and tallying seven rebounds. Allie Grazulis grabbed a team high 12 rebounds and Danielle Skinner added 18 points off the bench.