Box Score

MONMOUTH, Ore. – Behind a season-high 19 points from junior Brooke Tolman that included going 4-6 from three-point range, the Montana State University Billings women's basketball team completed their first season-sweep of the 2011-12 campaign as the Yellowjackets claimed their second road-victory in a row 57-41 over Western Oregon University Thursday night inside the New P.E. Building.
 
The Yellowjackets used the 16-point victory to improve to 14-7 overall that includes a 6-4 mark in Great Northwest Athletic Conference action while the Wolves slip to 4-16 overall and 3-7 in the league.
 
“To get any road win in the GNAC is a great accomplishment,” head coach Kevin Woodin stated after the win. “We started off slow and got behind early, but the team did not let it affect them as they didn't get rattled. Brooke Tolman really helped us in the first half especially, but carried that over to put together a very good, complete game that we needed.
 
“The key was that we played good, team defense and rebounded extremely well. Everybody on our team got at least one rebound tonight and we have been wanting to focus on that aspect of our game. Those rebounds gave us a lot of extra opportunities and that helped us to battle back tonight.”
 
MSUB out-rebounded the Wolves 44-32 as every player recorded at least one rebound. The 'Jackets shot a consistent 34.4% (21-61) from the field which was just under WOU's 35.6% (16-45) performance.
 
Tolman led the way for the Yellowjackets with her season-high 19 points off the bench, including 11 points in the first half alone. The junior from Honeyville, Utah hit six of her 10 attempts from the field, draining a season-high four treys. She also corralled in five rebounds.
 
Sophomore Bobbi Knudsen was the other Yellowjacket to reach the double-digit mark as she finished the game with 12 points. The Malta native went 6-13 from the field and had a game-high four assists.
 
Behind the pair of guards, Kabri Emerson gave the Yellowjackets some solid minutes as she produced six points and corralled in five rebounds.
 
The forward tandem of Janiel Olson and Kayleen Goggins had a game-high eight rebounds each. Both of the freshmen forwards also drained both of their shots from the charity stripe.
 
For Western Oregon, Rylee Peterson, who has led the Wolves this season in scoring, came away with 11 points in the loss and brought down eight rebounds to tie the game-high set by MSUB's young forward tandem. Just behind Peterson, Melissa Fowler had eight points as she connected on all four of her shots from the field.
 
Western Oregon capitalized on home-court advantage and a slow start by the Yellowjackets to go up early. The wolves opened the game on an 11-4 run through the first five minutes of play to establish their largest lead of the game, but from there, MSUB would fight and claw its way back, claiming a one-point lead off a Tolman trey at the 13:36 mark.
 
Another three-pointer from Tolman a few seconds later to put the Yellowjacets ahead for good proved to be the shot in the arm the 'Jacket women needed as they would never trail again, going on a 16-4 run to end the half with a 31-18 lead at half time.
 
The first three minutes out of the intermission would pass with neither team able to find the bottom of the net, but Knudsen ended the drought with a jumper off a feed from Goggins to extend the advantage to 15 points.
 
The Yellowjackets would go on a scoring blitz from there, nearly eclipsing the 30-point lead mark when Ashey Reed rolled in a layup to put MSUB up by 28 points (54-26) to cap a 23-8 run that spanned nearly eight minutes of the second half.
 
MSUB only scored three points after that as Western Oregon attempted to chip away at the lead which proved to be just too much for the Wolves to overcome in the closing minutes.
 
MSUB converted 21 WOU turnovers into 21 points and out-scored the Wolves 36-9 off the bench. The Yellowjackets also kept the Wolves from scoring a single second-chance point as they out-scored the WOU 18-0 in the category.
 
The Yellowjacket women will conclude their three-game road-swing with a 7 p.m. game this Saturday at Saint Martin's University. MSUB will be looking to earn their second season-sweep in a row as the Yellowjackets claimed a dominating 72-43 victory over the Saints back on Dec. 29 in Billings.