Eric Hylden, staff photographer
UND's Jenny Crouse (51) and Alison Derck grab a rebound in front of Eileen Weber.|
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Eric Hylden, staff photographer
UND's Jenny Crouse (51) and Alison Derck grab a rebound in front of Eileen Weber. |
UND knew it had to stand tall against Southern Indiana full-court, in-your-face style of play. There would be no time for a breather.
UND withstood Southern Indiana's pressure. And they withstood the Lady Screaming Eagles' quick-paced platoon system, designed to keep fresh legs on the floor.
At the end, UND indeed was standing tall -- against the press, by scoring inside and as national champions.
UND won its first national Division II women's basketball championship -- and first Division II title of any kind -- Saturday afternoon, beating Southern Indiana 94-78 before 4,524 roaring fans at Hyslop Sports Center. The win also snapped USI's 29-game win streak.
For the Sioux, the win ends a decade of frustration. Despite being one of the nation's dominant teams, UND never qualified for the national tournament. But once it did, the Sioux made the best of their first appearance in the Elite Eight.
Sioux players took turns leading the way. The last six minutes of the game, however, all UND players were contributing. The Sioux outscored USI 20-6 in the final 6:10 as a sophomore and freshman came up the biggest.
Sophomore center Jenny Crouse, saddled with foul trouble much of the game, broke open a 74-72 game with her dominating inside play. And freshman point guard Jaime Pudenz, who never showed signs of tiring against the constant pressure, hit five of six insurance free throws to keep the Division II title in the North Central Conference for the fifth straight year.
Eileen Weber's basket on the drive cut UND's one-time 13-point lead to two, at 74-72 with 6:23 left. The Sioux responded with a Katie Richards offensive rebound and basket to regain a four-point edge. From that point, Crouse dominated. Working the boards hard and posting up equally hard, she scored four straight baskets for the Sioux. Her fourth, with 3:36 to play, gave UND an 87-75 lead.
The double-digit lead was too much for USI to overcome as the Screaming Eagles had trouble with a switch in Sioux defenses.
UND rarely plays zone, but Sioux coach Gene Roebuck called for the defense with four minutes left and a 10-point lead to protect Crouse and to throw off USI's three-time All-American LeAnn Freeland, an athletic 6-foot senior whose spinning post moves netted her 27 points.
Crouse answered with 20 points, making 8 of 10 shots. "Jenny played at another level," Roebuck said. "Down the stretch, she did not want to lose."
Crouse played only 15 minutes because of foul trouble, but she made the most of her minutes. "If the ref was going to call the fifth foul, there wasn't much I could do about it," Crouse said. "I was a little frustrated, but I just had to go out there and play. But once I got in my rhythm, things went pretty well."
Things, however, did not go well for the Sioux during a six-minute stretch of the second half. The Screaming Eagles cut a 13-point deficit to two. It appeared UND was beginning to succumb to USI's pressure, just like its previous two opponents had done late.
"There was no letdown," UND senior Kelli Britz said. "We knew they'd be making a run. We just had to keep at them. We had to keep playing good defense and get the rebounds and loose balls. We weren't going to give up."
UND's play down the stretch was similar to the 19-2 game-finishing run it had to defeat North Dakota State in the North Central Region final.
As expected, the game began at laser-beam speed. And USI's press nearly turned the game in the Screaming Eagles' favor during a frantic 29-second stretch midway through the first half.
A Jamie Pudenz 3-pointer gave the Sioux a 24-20 lead, and wiped out USI's early momentum. But that momentum was reclaimed quickly. After Freeland's basket cut the lead to 24-22, the Sioux threw the ball away three straight times. The Eagles' scored seven points off the turnovers.
However, Kami Winger and Tiffany Pudenz, who led the Sioux with 23 points, combined for an 8-2 run to recharge the Sioux.
"I knew we'd get in situations where we'd give up the ball a few times," Roebuck said. "This was a game of runs."
One UND run came to start the second half, when they expanded a four-point lead to 13 with 12:36 remaining. The Sioux perhaps played its best offensive half of the season after intermission, shooting 57 percent from the field and scoring 50 points against a defense that had surrendered only 55 and 62 points in its first two tournament games.
Balance was the reason. Besides Tiffany Pudenz' 23 and Crouse's 20, Winger (15), Britz (14), Jaime Pudenz (12) and Richards (10) ended in double figures.
"We played hard; North Dakota played great and that's about all I can say," said USI coach Chance Dugan, whose team was the first from the Great Lakes Valley Conference to reach the Division II title game.
But she added: "They did a nice job of getting the ball inside (to Crouse) down the stretch. They spread us out a bit."
USI finished 30-2 while the Sioux ended 28-4, which ties the school record for most wins in a season.
However, the one number that mattered most was No. 1.
"As time wore down, we kicked it up a level," said Allison Derck, one of two Sioux seniors. "We just wanted it. We were on a mission."
Mission accomplished.