Photo by Samantha Davis. Southwest Minnesota State University's Peyton Blandin drives down the lane in the first half against Wayne State Tuesday night in the NSIC conference opener at the R/A Facility at SMSU. Blandin scored a career high 27 points in the Mustangs' 75-71 victory.

MARSHALL — Fighting through in-game injuries in a back-and-forth game with nine lead changes and eight ties, the Southwest Minnesota State University womens basketball team defeated Wayne State 75-71 in its Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference opener Tuesday night at the R/A Facility, powered behind a career-high 27 points from senior guard Peyton Blandin. The Mustangs continue their undefeated 6-0 start to the season.

“[SMSU head coach Tom] Webb looked at me, and I just knew that I had to step up,” Blandin said. “I wasn’t even worried about [the points]. I didn’t look at the score, I just knew that as a team, we had to get that win.”

In an effort to remain undefeated and start a four-game home stretch with a conference victory, Audrey Swanson followed behind Blandin and finished with 19 points, while Kenzie Jones added in 14 with a team-high three assists.

SMSU’s leading scorer Bri Stoltzman went down about two minutes into the game with an apparent right leg injury after landing wrong on a layup attempt. She was down for a few minutes on the court before walking off without assistance, and eventually returned at the start of the second quarter for about a minute before sitting again.

Stoltzman did not play the rest of the game and returned to the bench after halftime in a walking boot. Webb said he does not know the extent of Stoltzman’s injury.

Stoltzman is currently SMSU’s leading scorer with 21.2 ppg, while also leading in assists and steals. She also was named the NSIC player of the week on Monday.

Swanson stepped in on the scoring end with Stoltzman out, and had a team-high six first quarter points.

The last time the two met last season, SMSU got away with a 75-68 road win, although the Wildcats hold the 42-24 series advantage.

“We have been playing pretty good basketball … We knew that it was going to be a physical game. Wayne State is a good team,” Webb said. “Early on, it kind of went sideways. We had talked about how things can go sideways sometimes … But, we battled back.”

SMSU shot 50% from the field and had 58 points in the paint while holding Wayne State to 40% shooting and 42 points in the paint.

“Young kids stepped in, they made some plays when they needed to,” Webb said.

Natalie Nielsen added in seven points and four rebounds, while Brynn Busse also scored four points with four rebounds.

The game started a bit rocky for the Mustangs, who won the tip but the ball was immediately stolen from Wayne State, who had three steals in the first quarter and forced four Mustangs turnovers.

With a 15-11 deficit, Blandin went in for a wide open layup following a switch at the top of the key to cut the trail by a basket. But, the lane was also left open for the Wildcats to easily score in on the next possession in response.

Wayne State led 18-15 at the end of the first, despite shooting 41.2% from the field to SMSU’s 46.7%.

Injuries continued to challenge the Mustangs. Jones went down in the beginning of the second quarter with a leg injury and Swanson got a bloody nose after getting hit in the face, but was able to quickly return.

Jones missed 16 games last season due to an injury, but she returned to the game late in the second quarter.

“When you have a team that just competes so hard all the time, and they really just, they care. It’s hard sometimes not to just get emotional,” Webb said. “It was one thing after another, and then we battled back. We took the lead of the half, which showed really, really tough grit. Then we had a really good third quarter, and that took care of it.”

Blandin hit the Mustangs’ first 3-pointer of the night midway through the second, to cut into a 27-25 deficit.

SMSU had to find other ways to score tonight besides from beyond the arc, which tends to be part of the team’s offensive identity with an average of 7.8 makes a game.

The Mustangs only shot 2-for-9 at the 3-point line tonight.

“They weren’t letting us get any perimeter catches at all,” Webb said. “We knew going in that we were going to have to finish 1-on-1 … The difference is, when you have a kid like Bri that is not on the floor, she also creates a lot of passing lanes … We didn’t have that tonight, which is fine. We adjusted.”

Blandin began to heat up with three consecutive layups to bring SMSU within a point at 32-31.

The Mustangs were able to grab the one-possession lead going into the half 41-39 following each team exchanging a 3-pointer in the last minute, and Blandin crashed the paint once more with six seconds to go.

By the half, both teams were shooting 48% from the field with six ties and five lead changes. Both SMSU and the Wildcats had seven turnovers.

The biggest areas of difference were Wayne State shooting 4-for-9 from the arc and 17 bench points, compared to the Mustangs’ 2-for-5 behind the arc and 8 points from the bench.

SMSU came out of the half looking more composed and went on a 14-9 run to jump to a 55-48 lead. The Mustangs out-shot the Wildcats 22-17 in the third quarter, the largest margin of the game.

Blandin secured her career-high baskets with a pair of open layups to extend the Mustangs lead. Her previous highest-scoring outing was against Chadron State on Nov. 20 last season with 17 points.

“You get those moments, and you don’t know when they’re going to come, and you have to be ready for them,” Webb said. “She understood exactly what she needed to do in those situations. What I mean by that is, when she had the mismatch, she knew where she wanted to go with it, and attacked, got downhill, and finished with contact.”

SMSU continued to slowly pull away in the third quarter, behind shooting 66.7% from the field and three blocks to the Wildcats’ 30% shooting and zero blocks.

Blandin continued with the hot hand with another pair of jump shots, as tension grew in the final minutes of the close game.

When the defensive rebounds mattered, Swanson, Jones and Maddie Thorfinnson continued to find themselves under the basket to grab the ball. Swanson ended with a team-high seven rebounds, while Jones and Thorfinnson followed with six each.

With a minute to go and SMSU holding a 4-point edge, the Mustangs were able to keep its streak alive after Blandin hit a pair of free throws after being fouled and prevented the Wildcats from getting in a last-second shot.

“We still won, which shows that we have a lot of potential,” Blandin said. “I think we can learn from this, through all the adversity … We had to overcome all of that adversity, and I think we did it pretty well actually.”

SMSU, (6-0, 1-0), will stay in Marshall the next two weeks with a string of home games, next hosting Division III opponent Bethany Lutheran at 4 p.m. this Saturday at the R/A Facility.

“We’re going to take two days off and enjoy family,” Webb said. “We’ll come back on Friday. We’ll see where we are as far as injuries and health, and then we’ll play Saturday and prepare for the next week.”