BELMONT, Calif. – After a disappointing performance against Cal State Monterey Bay Saturday, the Montana State Billings women's basketball team responded with a dominating 68-42 victory Monday evening at Notre Dame de Namur.  With the victory, the Yellowjackets evened their record at 2-2, while the Argonauts fell to 1-2 on the year.

“I was very pleased with how we played tonight, we were very focused,” MSUB head coach Kevin Woodin said. “It was very important for us to respond after our defeat a couple of days ago.  I really liked the attitude of our players tonight, we shared the ball very well with good inside-out play and side-to-side.  We passed the ball as well as we have all season.”

The Yellowjackets were led by senior Beata Bak who tallied a game-high 20 points with 11 rebounds for her second double-double of the road trip.  Bak went a team-high 8 of 18 from the field and 4 of 4 from the line.  She also had a team-high three blocks.  Freshman Bobbi Knudsen had 10 points off the bench on 4 of 7 shooting and 2 of 4 from deep.  Senior Kayla Ryan tallied a team-high 13 rebounds and nine points.

“We had a very balanced attack as Beata (Bak) and Kayla (Ryan) were great on the boards,” Woodin added.  “We had some great bench play as Lisa Laslovich, Bobbi Knudsen gave us a real good spark in the first half, and Ashley Reed played very good interior defense.”

The Yellowjackets shot 28 of 70 from the field for a season-high 40 percent.   They were 6 of 24 from beyond the arc and 6 of 11 from the line.  MSUB tallied a season-high 50 rebounds, including 16 on the offensive end. 

Notre Dame de Namur had just one player in double figures as Laura Zasly tallied 11 points.  NDNU's Pilar Mullins had 15 rebounds for the Argonauts to lead the team.  Only seven of the 14 players who played scored.

MSUB's defense stymied the Argonauts as the shot just 28 percent on 17 of 60 from the field.  They were just 2 of 12 from deep and 6 of 13 from the charity stripe.  NDNU tallied 41 rebounds.

The Jackets also dominated the specialty stats as they doubled up the Argos in points in the paint, 28-14.  MSUB also held a 16-4 lead in points off turnovers and 10-3 in second chance points.  They also had a 22-6 lead in bench points.

The Argos held an early 8-4 lead at the at the 15:10 mark as it would be their largest and last lead of the game.  From there, the Yellowjackets took the lead on a senior Mandy Jacobs jumper for a 13-12 lead with 11:58 left in the half. 

Jacobs later followed with a jumper at the 5:54 mark to give MSUB its largest lead to that point at 28-18.  From Jacobs' jumper at 11:58, the Jackets used a 15-6 run to open the double-digit lead.  MSUB held a 37-30 lead at intermission.

“We went into the half with a seven point lead and came out in the second half firing on all cylinders and got the lead close to 20 points and remained aggressive to the end,” Woodin said. “I thought our team defense was very good tonight and I was proud of the way we played.”

Through the first 13 minutes of the second half, the Yellowjackets outscored NDNU 24-10 en route to a 61-40 lead.  MSUB swelled the lead to a game-high 26 points as it held NDNU to just 12 points in the second half and no points in the final 5:40.