Batt earns Career-high in Split Series

The Minnesota State women’s basketball team split their final series against the Concordia-St. Paul Golden Bears last weekend.

The Mavericks closed out their season with a 9-6 overall record, and an 8-5 conference record, good enough to grab the third seed in the NSIC south division.

The first quarter of Friday’s game was as close as could be, as CSP grabbed an early 5-0 lead, but MSU stayed within one possession throughout the entire quarter. The Mavericks managed to grab their first lead of the game with two seconds remaining in the quarter following a pair of free throws from Joey Batt and a layup from Rylee Menster to go into the break with an 18-16 lead.

The Mavericks kicked it into gear and absolutely dominated the Golden Bears in the second quarter with a run of 30-6, stemming from Batt’s free throws. MSU went into the half with a 46-23 lead.

Senior Maddy Olson led the team in points with 15 at that point in the game, while Batt was right behind her with 14.

CSP came back in the third quarter and attempted to close the gap, but could not find much success. Concordia outscored MSU 20-17 in the third, only cutting three points off the original 23 point deficit.

Minnesota State closed out the game stronger, outscoring CSP 26-20 and won the first meeting of the weekend series 89-63.

Olson finished the game as the leading scorer with 20 points, tying her career-high points in a game from last weekend’s 20 point game against Upper Iowa. Joey Batt put up 17 of her own on the day while shooting 9-10 from the free throw line.

The Mavericks shot .387 in field goals and .375 in three-pointers, outclassing CSP in both categories who shot .351 and .304, respectively. MSU’s bench came up big with 53 points in the win.

Saturday’s game was a closer matchup, this time with the Mavericks taking the early lead with a score of 9-4. The teams exchanged baskets back and forth throughout the quarter, going into the second quarter with a 19-14 Maverick lead.

Including the final 30 seconds of the first quarter, the Golden Bears went on an 11-0 run in the second, taking the lead 22-19. CSP retained the lead for the entirety of the second quarter and went into the locker rooms with a 45-30 lead.

In the first few minutes of the first quarter, there were several baskets exchanged, until the Mavericks found a way to turn an 11 point deficit into a tie game at 55 with points scored from four different Mavericks’.

Although they managed to tie the game halfway through the third quarter, Minnesota State was not able to grab a lead and dropped their final game of the season 93-99.

Joey Batt led the Mavericks in scoring with an astonishing career-high 29 points. She led the Mavericks in points per game with 13.9.