Dec. 19, 1998

For the first time since Jan. 20, 1996, NSU lost a women's basketball game inside the Barnett Center and Wachs Arena. Missouri Western, ranked 10th in the nation, shot 49 percent from the field and 50 percent from 3-point range to defeat Northern 75-62 and end the Wolves' 29-game home winning streak. The loss was only the seventh the Wolves have ever had to endure inside Wachs Arena. Since play began there during the at the beginning of the 1987-88 season, NSU is a remarkable 156-7 (96 percent) in the building.

The Wolves played even with the Lady Griffons the first half and grabbed a 44-40 lead fourminutes into the second stanza. But from there MWSC scored 15 unanswered points to grab an 11-point lead that was too big to overcome for NSU.

NSU held the nation's 11th-ranked scorer in MWSC's Becky Reichard to just 10 points on 3-of-11 shooting (she averages 21.9 ppg on 58 percent shooting), but four other Lady Griffons scored in double digits to make the difference. Sara Elgin and Danielle Kneib scored 13 points apiece to lead the Missouri Western.

Junior guard Amanda Mikuska (Platte, S.D.) went down firing for NSU with a game-high 27 points on 10-of-16 shooting. By nailing seven from dowtown, Mikuska ended up one shy of the school record for treys made in a single game (Barb Schmidt hit eight 3-pointers in a game during the 1989-90 season).

Junior guard Jammie Coyle (Belle Fourche, S.D.) led the NSU boards squad with nine rebounds to go along with 12 points. Sophomore forward Memory Johannsen (Tolstoy, S.D.) rounded out NSU's double-digit scorers with 10 points.

The schedule doesn't get any easier for the Wolves, who host 8th-ranked Nebraska-Kearney Dec. 28.