DEVILS LAKE — Have you ever seen a shutout quarter in a basketball game?
Well, if you were watching the Lake Region State College women’s basketball playoff game on Wednesday, then now you have. The Royals, whose defensive talents led them to a third-place finish in the regular season, didn’t allow a single point in the second quarter of their playoff opener at Devils Lake Sports Center. They went on to beat Bismarck State College 72-43 to keep their postseason run going.
“Keeping them to 13 points in the first half was outstanding,” head coach Ryan Clark said. “We were guarding the three-point line really well… Really, really good job. It’s exciting.”
The Royals, coming off their best offensive performance of the season on Sunday, struggled to score in the opening minutes. As did the Mystics, who didn’t put in a basket until a three-pointer at the 7:29 mark. BSC was passing sloppily, while LRSC was going for three and missing each time.
“I’m never too concerned about offensively, where we’re going,” Clark said. “I mean, obviously I want to score points, I’m not gonna lie and act like I don’t, but we’ll find a way. We’ll figure it out.”
The Royals eventually scored at 6:52 on a Brooke Kleinig layup after she rebounded another missed three. BSC led 5-2, but Carlie Lawrence missed a pair of free throws to keep it close.
Anisah Wolf and Nicole Lillard, who often make large impacts off the bench, both helped LRSC overtake the lead. Wolf couldn’t squeeze around guards, but she got fouled and made both free throws. She found the rim on the next play to give the Royals the lead.
LRSC, after missing a handful of threes in the early going, landed its next two from the hands of Lillard and Arden Faulkner. It was a 10-0 run for the Royals, putting them up 12-5.
The Mystics countered with eight straight of their own. What they didn’t know at the time was that those were the last points they would score for quite a while.
Kelsey Crossan put in a layup a couple seconds before the buzzer of the first quarter, squeezing LRSC in front, 14-13.
The Royals officially took off and never looked back once the second quarter got going. They scored 22 straight points, extending their overall run to 24-0. BSC did not score a single point the entire quarter.
Tiyahna Trottier and Natalie DeCoteau each put up back-to-back baskets amidst the streak. Crossan and Trottier hit back-to-back threes at the end of the first half, and LRSC led 36-13. The Royals simply prevented the Mystics from having clean possessions. BSC turned the ball over 16 times in the first half.
The run didn’t stop once the second half got going. Crossan won a battle at the rim, and DeCoteau swished a three. The Mystics continued to play sloppily, missing routine layups and airballing three-point attempts. Faulkner made her second three of the game to get LRSC to the 50-point threshold.
“They want to shoot a lot of threes. That’s what they want to do,” Clark said of the Mystics. “So we made a little point of getting up high, hiding that space and forcing them to put the ball on the floor.”
BSC finally scored on a free throw at 3:17 in the third quarter. It ended the Royals’ run at a ridiculous 38-0. LRSC went nearly two entire quarters without allowing a point.
Clark said that not only was that the first shutout quarter he’s ever coached, but the first one he’s ever seen.
It extended into a 9-0 run for the Mystics — three via the free throw. The Royals got back in the points column thanks to Brailyn Davis-DeCoteau, much to the delight of her teammates on the bench. The Royals led 53-22 with a quarter left in the game.
LRSC got more bench contributions in the fourth quarter; Davis-DeCoteau made another shot, and Morgan Leas and Kiara Holweger made back-to-back threes. Leas’ basket looked wild out of her hands, but it took a stunningly perfect ricochet off the backboard to go in. There were laughs and cheers all over the gym, the fans in attendance quite enjoying this complete rout of the Mystics.
“They work hard every day just like the rest of them,” Clark said of the bench players. “They show up for practice every day. They haven’t played in X amount of games, and they continue to show up with a smile on their face, supporting their teammates… To be able to get them in and then get some reward, and then have the others cheering for them, it’s just a lot of fun.”
Teagyn Fitzsimonds made a basket off the bench, extending LRSC’s current run to 13-0. And because this was a game of runs — some more extreme than others — BSC responded with a 12-0 stretch.
Faulkner made her third three of the game, and Amayah Brown-Grindeland got LRSC to the 70-point mark. In the end, it was a 72-43 win over the last-place team in the conference.
The Royals can enjoy this one now — and they certainly deserve to — but it’ll be back to business once they take on the tougher teams in the field. They’ll travel to Williston on Saturday for a contest against the No. 2 seed, North Dakota State College of Science, at 4 p.m.
“Science is gonna be tough. They’ve got a lot of really, really good players,” Clark said. “Every game we’ve played against them has kind of been close… I’m sure it’s gonna be a battle. We’re both playing away from home as well, so it’s gonna be fun and exciting. Glad we get the opportunity to go down and do it.”
