Feb. 17, 1999

Northern State's postseason hopes were effectively dashed Wednesday night at Southwest State. With a Minnesota-Duluth (17-9 overall, 9-2 NSIC) win against Bemidji State coupled with a tough Northern loss in Marshall by a score of 86-80, the Wolves (13-12, 7-3) can now only hope for a share of the conference title with Duluth. The Bulldogs would win that tiebreaker and move on to the North Central Regional Tournament based on how the teams fared in overall play according to the current NCAA Division II Championship Strength of Schedule Index.

The Wolves did not go down without a fight, however.

After knocking off Duluth Wednesday to put themselves right back in the conference chase, the Wolves found themselves down by 13 at halftime and as many as 15 early in the second half before slowly clawing their way back in the face of nearly 2,000 frenzied SSU fans bent on seeing their Mustangs pull off their second win ever over NSU.

NSU earned its first lead of the game at 64-63 with seven minutes, 30 seconds remaining. For the next four minutes, the teams exchanged leads and figurative blows before NSU began to run out of gas. SSU opened up a seven-point lead with under 50 seconds remaining. Game over, right? Wrong.

Junior guard Amanda Mikuska (Platte, S.D.), playing with a an injured and taped up right shoulder that forced her to miss one game and has kept her out of the starting lineup the past two games including this one, rifled up and stuck a 3-pointer to pull the Wolves to within four with 39 seconds remaining. SSU made a free throw on the subsequent Northern foul and was able to whittle the clock down with tough perimeter defense on the other end. But Mikuska created yet another opportunity for NSU by draining an impossible long-range bomb off the dribble that closed the Wolves to 82-80.

Unfortunately, the miracles ended there. SSU made its last four free throws to seal the game. The Mustangs, nationally ranked in free-throw percentage, proved why by hitting an incredible 36-of-41 shots from the charity stripe for the game. SSU had three players score 20 or more points in Dani Coleman, Erin Frye and Andrea Schreier. The big three went 26-of-27 from the line.

NSU was led by junior guard Jammie Coyle's (Belle Fourche, S.D.) 14 points and seven rebounds. Mikuska and sophomore forward Natalie Braun (Warner, S.D.) followed with 12 points apiece. Braun also dished out a team-high five assists. Rounding out NSU's double-digit scorers was sophomore guard/forward Memory Johannsen (Tolstoy, S.D.) with 10 points.