By Alan Hedrick
ShowMe Times Sports

(Houghton, Mich.) – Katelyn and Cathryn Heil of Dexter, entering their second season at Missouri S&T, were unable to keep up with the hot shooting of Wisconsin-Parkside as the Missouri S&T Lady Miners fell 73-55 in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament in Houghton, Mich. S&T finished its season with 20 wins, marking just the third time in school history that the program has had 20 or more wins.

The Lady Miners,(20-8) after not playing for two weeks, were rusty early falling behind  6-0 three minutes into the contest. S&T missed its first four shots from the floor and had a turnover before Julie Meyer made a lay-up for its first points of the game.

The Rangers (23-6) were deadly from the floor making 14 of its first 15 shots on its way to building a double digit lead nine minutes into the contest.

The Lady Miners got as close as 15-6 before Parkside went on a 16-4 run spanning five minutes to take its biggest lead of the ball game at 31-10 at the 5:39 mark.

S&T started to get its offense going over the final five minutes of the half eventually cutting the deficit to 10 on a pair of free throws by Fareedah Washington with 0:10.3 left in the half.

Kaitlyn Bettiga’s driving lay-up on the ensuing possession sent the Rangers to the locker room with a 35-23 advantage.

Parkside cooled slightly after its hot start making just 2-of-7 from the floor the rest of the half but still shot 73 percent. The Rangers dominated in the paint outscoring the Lady Miners 28-to-16.

S&T shot 10-for-28 (36 percent) from the floor and were tied in rebounding at 14 apiece with Parkside..

Each side exchanged a pair of buckets in the first two minutes of the second half before the Lady Miners began to chip away at the lead. Trailing by 10, Courtney Kemp and Chelsea Stangel each hit a three in a 6-2 run that brought them within 44-38 with less than 15 minutes to play.

Rooney was just too tough to stop, as she scored 11 of her game-high 26 points in the game-deciding 15-2 run stretching the Rangers lead to 59-40 with less than 10 minutes to play. Rooney also hit a trio of threes in the run.

From that point, S&T didn’t get any closer than 14 points the rest of the contest. The trio of Rooney, Bettiga and Beyer accounted for 61 of Parkside’s 73 points. The Rangers finished the game shooting nearly 70 percent (32-for-46) from the floor and scored 44 points in the paint. They also turned 18 Lady Miner turnovers into 27 points. S&T shot 52.4 percent in the second half and finished the game 21-of-49 (43 percent) from the floor. On the glass the Lady Miners finished with a 26-to-22 advantage. Washington had 14 points and 10 rebounds to lead the Lady Miners. Kemp scored all 11 of her points in the second half while Meyer added 10 more.

                                               

	1st Half	2nd Half	FINAL
MISSOURI S&T	23	32	55
WISCONSIN-PARKSIDE	35	38	73

MISSOURI S&T: Fareedah-14. Kemp-11. Meyer-10. Parks-8. K. Heil-5. Stangel-3. Sample-2. Mims-2.

WISCONSIN-PARKSIDE: Rooney-26. Bettiga-16. Beyer-15. Trussell-7. Hogen-5. Slivka-2. Ruchti-2.

Photos provided by Missouri S&T Sports Information.