Photo by Samantha Davis: Southwest Minnesota State University guard Nicole Maenke, left, drives against Concordia-St. Paul's Leah Dengerud during the second half of a Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference womens basketball game on Saturday afternoon at the R/A Facility in Marshall. The Golden Bears defeated the Mustangs 72-58, ending the Mustangs' eight-game win streak to start the season.

MARSHALL — The Southwest Minnesota State University womens basketball team hosted Concordia-St. Paul on Saturday afternoon in a battle of two Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference teams on eight-game win streaks to start the season. While the Mustangs were a win away from setting the program record for best start to a season, the Golden Bears overcame a halftime deficit with a third-quarter surge to hand SMSU its first loss of the season, 72-58.

After trailing by 4 points at the half, the Golden Bears looked reinvigorated to start the third quarter. Concordia-St. Paul forced seven Mustang turnovers for 11 points to surge ahead to a 43-36 lead when SMSU called a timeout just over four minutes into the quarter.

Immediately after returning from the benches, Leah Dengerud came up with another steal for another easy transition layup to grab a 9-point lead, the largest of the game at the time. Dengerud finished the night with a game-high 18 points on 7 of 14 shooting.

“We looked really unsure, and sometimes when you’re unsure then it kind of just goes from one to the next to the next and it kind of rolls a little bit,” SMSU head coach Tom Webb said. “We’ve had to figure that out a little bit recently, so it’s kind of maybe a great lesson for us. Just be able to get a bucket. What do you want to go to? Settle everything down and then you’re good.”

Webb added that in a game as physical as Saturday’s was, it’s important to be able to get to your spots and the Golden Bears made that difficult at times. The physicality showed on the score sheet as Concordia-St. Paul built a 36-22 advantage in points in the paint.

The Golden Bears shot 53% from the field in the third quarter and 2 of 4 from 3-point range. It was their only quarter making more than a third of their 3-point attempts and they shot 10% higher from the field than they did in any other quarter.

Concordia St. Paul finished the game with a 22-10 advantage in points off turnovers after leading the category just 6-5 at halftime. Haack and Bengtson logged six and four steals respectively as the Golden Bears won the turnover battle 10-18.

Natalie Nielsen stopped the bleeding a bit with a layup, her second of the quarter and of the game, and Thorfinnson knocked down another 3 to cut the deficit to 5 points. Still, Dengerud answered and Julia Bengtson got an and-1 after a Peyton Blandin layup to re-extend the Golden Bears’ lead to 9 points with 2:23 left in the third.

In the final minute of the third quarter, Maddie Thorfinnson and Kenzie Jones each made a pair of layups to cut the deficit to 54-49 heading into the final frame.

Blandin hit a layup nine seconds into the fourth quarter to make it a 3-point game, but that was as close as the Mustangs got. Dengerud and Lindsey Becher hit a layup on two of the Golden Bears’ next three possessions to make it a 7-point game again and a Bengtson layup made it 60-51 with seven minutes left. The Golden Bears led by as many as 14 points as they pulled away for the win.

SMSU spread out its offense with no one player dominating the ball. Blandin and Audrey Swanson led the team with 13 points each, Blandin shooting 6 of 17 and Swanson 3 of 13. Thorfinnson also added 12 points on six attempts, including 3 of 5 shooting from beyond the arc, while Bri Stoltzman shot 2 of 9 for 4 points.

Swanson once again led SMSU on the glass, grabbing a game-high 11 rebounds for her second double-double in as many days. Blandin and Nielsen also grabbed six and five rebounds respectively, while Gamble and Becher each recorded nine for the Golden Bears as the teams split the rebounding battle 41-41.

On the Golden Bears’ first possession of the second quarter, Mikayla Kanewisher gave Concordia the lead with an early layup. Megan Gamble connected on a pair of free throws to make the score 17-13 to tie Concordia’s largest lead of the half.

Still, SMSU rallied right back when Blandin got the ball to the restricted area before lobbing a pass over a defender to Jones for an easy layup. Blandin finished the night tied with Gamble for a game-high five assists while Maenke dished out another three. As a team, SMSU finished with 10 assists and 18 turnovers while Concordia recorded 14 assists on 10 turnovers.

Blandin hit a jumper from the free-throw line the next trip down the floor and Maddie Thorfinnson spun into a layup attempt to earn a pair of free throws. While she missed the first, she made the second to give SMSU the lead with seven minutes remaining.

A pair of buckets from Dengerud gave Concordia a 21-18 lead again, but the Mustangs kept coming. Thorfinnson banked in a deep tying 3 from high off the glass to tie up the game and Swanson canned another 3 the next trip down the floor to give the Mustangs a 3-point advantage.

SMSU trailed by 2 points after a Ashley Schuelke 3 but Blandin knocked down another free-throw line stepback to tie the game up with a minute left. Thorfinnson again followed up with a bank shot, this time from the wing, to give SMSU a 31-28 lead, laughing as she got back on defense.

Lydia Haack made it a 1-point game with a layup with 10 seconds left but Nicole Maenke came in clutch from the corner with a buzzer-beater 3 to make the Mustangs’ lead 34-30 at the halfway mark.

While the Mustangs have been a more paint-oriented team so far this season, SMSU’s second-quarter shooting made the difference in the first half. After going 1 of 5 in the first quarter, SMSU shot 4 of 7 from long range in the second. Concordia outscored SMSU 18-10 in the paint but shot 2 of 6 from 3-point range in the half.

Steals from Bengston and Gamble on SMSU’s first two possessions set up a pair of Bengston layups to give the Golden Bears an early 4-0 lead. Yet, SMSU held the Golden Bears scoreless for more than five minutes to take command of the game with an 11-0 run.

During the Mustang scoring run, Maenke had consecutive possessions in which she made a layup through traffic and then drew a foul on a 3-point attempt before knocking down all three free throws to make the score 9-4. Nielsen also anchored the defense on the run with an emphatic block, one of two for the South Dakota State-transfer in the half.

The Mustangs’ defense was stifling early on, limiting the Golden Bears to 26% shooting from the field in the first quarter and 32% in the half.

Becher, the Golden Bears’ second-leading scorer on the season with 13.4 points per game on 46.3% shooting, went 1 for 9 for 4 points. She found her rhythm in the third quarter, however, with 7 points on a pair of field goals and three made free throws on six attempts before finishing the game with a total of 15 points. She also blocked four shots.

“We were physical early, so we didn’t let [Becher] get so deep in the paint, and then her catches were just a little bit not in her spots,” Webb said. “Second half, they found more rhythm and that got us in foul trouble, so that hurt us a little.”

SMSU finished the game with a total of 24 fouls, 15 of which came after halftime.

Still, the Golden Bears also limited SMSU to 25% from the field in the first quarter and 36% in the half, and Concordia’s seven offensive rebounds translated to a 7-2 advantage in second-chance points.

A Haack bucket made it a one-possession game again. Maenke got a tough block in the paint to keep the Mustangs on top, but a foul on Jones kept the ball in Concordia’s court and Dengerud got a tying 3 with 90 seconds remaining in the quarter. Still, Thorfinnson came away with a steal to set up a Swanson eurostep layup.

SMSU got the ball back one last time in the quarter with a 3-second game clock-shot clock differential, but Gamble grabbed the defensive rebound with three seconds left and dished it up to Schuelke, who found Emma Mommsen with a bounce pass for a game-tying layup as time expired in the quarter.

SMSU falls to 8-1 on the season with the loss (2-1 NSIC) while Concordia-St. Paul improves to 9-0 (3-0 NSIC). The Mustangs will look to get back on track next weekend when they go on the road to face Minnesota State (7-2, 3-0 NSIC) and Winona State (5-4, 1-2 NSIC). Friday’s game against Minnesota State is slated for 5:30 p.m. while Saturday’s against Winona State is scheduled for 3:30 p.m.