By Wayne Nelson
Herald Staff Writer
ST. CLOUD, Minn. -- A month ago, St. Cloud State coach Lori Ulferts said there was no team in Division II women's basketball that could beat the defending national champion Sioux after her Huskies were on the short end of a lopsided score at Hyslop Sports Center.
On Saturday night, she had an even higher opinion of the Sioux.
"They're even better than I thought they were a month ago," Ulferts said. "No one will beat them. No one will touch them."
This time, the thumping was by 91-62. UND's defense and timely 3-point shooting carried the Sioux closer to their first league championship since 1994.
The win improved UND to 13-0 in the league and 21-1 overall. And the closest any NCC team as come to the Sioux is 11 points by Augustana.
"They just have too many weapons, defensively and offensively," Ulferts said. "They're all such good defensive players."
It was the Sioux defense that earned two road wins on the weekend. UND held both St. Cloud and Mankato to 31 percent shooting. And both teams spent much of their possession time working hard just to find an open look at the basket.
"We played a real steady game without any low points," UND coach Gene Roebuck said. "Sometimes, we score a lot of points in a hurry. But in this game, we gradually pulled away. No highs. No lows. Just a steady game, one a coach likes."
St. Cloud threw a zone defense at UND, opting to take its chances against the solid Sioux perimeter shooting rather than defend Jenny Crouse, the nation's leader in field goal percentage, man-to-man inside. The Huskies stayed in the zone for most of the game, despite leading only once, by 5-3.
And the Sioux fired away. UND attempted a school-record 40 3-pointers, making 12 (30 percent). "If a team backs off of us, we'll shoot 40 (3-pointers)," said Roebuck. "We didn't shoot a great percentage, but we made 3-pointers at critical times."
UND led 35-25 at halftime. Jaime Pudenz had all 17 of her points before the break, including five 3-pointers.
"We didn't know what to expect from them," Pudenz said. "They were sagging way down in their zone so everyone had a chance to shoot. We hit some big shots at critical times, but they were probably where they wanted to be at halftime."
But St. Cloud was out of the picture after the Sioux went on a 12-2 run to open the second half. Elisha Kabanuk, who scored a career-high 16 points, had six of the 12 points.
"We've been talking about playing 40 minutes a game, not 30 minutes or 35 minutes," Kabanuk said. "At halftime, we talked about pressing them hard, getting in the passing lanes and running the floor more. And that's what we did."
Katie Richards (13 points), Crouse (12) and Tiffany Pudenz (11) joined Jaime Pudenz and Kabanuk in double figures. Richards, in one of her more aggressive efforts as a Sioux, also grabbed 15 rebounds, leading UND to a 58-37 advantage on the boards.
St. Cloud was led by Tina Schreiner's 17 points. However, the freshman forward had 15 at halftime. The Huskies also made their first 21 free throw attempts before Gina Gilbertson missed the front end of a bonus with 6:41 to play.
But St. Cloud's good free throw shooting (25 of 26) was no match for UND's 3-pointers and defense.