McFeely: Maybe Bison women have hope against Jackrabbits after all

This column was written by halftime. Done. Ready to be published.

South Dakota State's women's basketball team was on its way to routing North Dakota State again after a dominant second quarter in Brookings. Same old, same old. Then the third quarter happened.



Time to rewrite. Not completely, but significantly. To be clear, the Bison lost to the Jackrabbits.

Again. SDSU won 63-55 on Wednesday at First Bank & Trust Arena, the 55th straight Summit League regular-season victory for the powerhouse Jackrabbits. It was SDSU's 23rd straight victory over NDSU, a streak dating to Jan.

4, 2015, when the Bison beat the Jacks 83-78 at Scheels Arena in south Fargo while the old Bison Sports Arena was being revamped into the Sanford Health Athletic Complex. So in the end nothing changed. But the Bison led in the fourth quarter.

And they were tied with the mighty Jackrabbits 55-55 with 3 minutes, 15 seconds left in the game. They had a chance to beat SDSU. There was hope.

That's something NDSU hasn't been able to say often since the Bison fell so far behind the Jackrabbits in the Division I era. It might be slim as a sheet of paper, but maybe the Bison have a chance to beat SDSU when the teams meet again in Fargo in two weeks. Or, be still our hearts, in the Summit League tournament in early March.

The way this series has gone the last 20 years and as good as the Jackrabbits are, that's about all the Bison can hope. A chance. It didn't look like there was even going to be that after the second quarter.

After Molly Lenz nailed a 3-pointer just 14 seconds into the second quarter to give NDSU an 18-13 lead, the Jackrabbits did what the Jackrabbits do. They outscored the Bison 18-0 over the next 8 minutes, 42 seconds to take a 31-18 lead. NDSU went 0 for 8 over that stretch and couldn't hang onto the ball.

The Bison had 12 turnovers in the first half, a bugaboo that's haunted coach Jory Collins' team at various points this season. It was 31-20 at halftime. This column was written before the second half started.

The theme was this: A significant gap remains, despite NDSU's promising start in the conference slate this season. But then ..

. hope. The Bison went on a 14-0 run in the third quarter and, after an Abbie Draper put-back, took a 41-37 lead with 41 seconds left in the stanza.

SDSU trimmed the margin to 41-39 at the end of the quarter with a Brooklyn Meyer bucket. "I was really proud of how we came out of halftime. We just had an abysmal second quarter.

You can't have a five-point quarter against these guys on the road and think you're going to be able to win the game," Collins told Bison 1660 radio after the game. "We have to be able to be more consistent in that regard and put up 12, 13, 14 points minimum every quarter. But to come in the third quarter I thought we were much more assertive, much more aggressive and had a great quarter on both ends.

We just couldn't sustain it there in the last three minutes." A short jumper by Draper tied the game at 55-all with 3:15 remaining. Could this be happening? It was setting up to be NDSU's biggest victory in its two decades in Division I.

Could the Bison do this? No. NDSU went scoreless the rest of the way, missing four shots and making two turnovers. The talented, veteran Jackrabbits ended the game on an 8-0 run.

Katie Vasecka hit a 3-pointer seconds after Draper's jumper for a 58-55 SDSU lead and a driving layup by Paige Meyer made it 60-55 with 2:09 left. NDSU passed up an open 3-pointer and followed it with a turnover. Two free throws by Mesa Byom gave the Jacks a 62-55 advantage with 27 seconds left and that was all she wrote.

Another free throw by Byom closed out the scoring. NDSU, a team that makes fewer than six 3-pointers a game and averages 31.5%, was 9 of 20 (45%) from deep.

Senior Abby Schulte was 3 of 7. She went into the game 5 of 30 for the season, not having made more than one in each the previous 20 contests. "I loved Schulte's aggressiveness.

I'd love to see that every single night," Collins said. "She took seven threes and she really doesn't want to take them. I just told her, 'You have to take them.

They're leaving you.' And she shoots a great percentage, goes three for seven. I'll take that every day.

" It was almost enough to stop the tidal wave that is SDSU with the unbeatable crew of Brooklyn Meyer, Paige Meyer, Haleigh Timmer and so many others. Maybe next time, when SDSU visits NDSU on Feb. 12.

It's something to which Bison fans can look forward. After all, there is hope..