Dec. 30, 1999

Senior guard Amanda Mikuska (Platte) scored her 1,000th career point as Northern trounced Black Hills State University 80-44 Thursday night in Wachs Arena. The win was Northern's 12th straight. The Wolves are ranked 1st in the North Central Region and 21st in the nation.

Mikuska, who finished with the exact 11 points needed to break into quadruple career digits, also led the Wolves with four assists. But the story of the game was steals. After building a 32-18 first-half lead, Northern came out the second half with a fulle-court press that choked the life out of the Yellow Jackets. BHSU didn't score in the first five-and-a-half minutes in the second stanza, allowing Northern to run up a 14-0 run and 46-18 cushion. The Wolves forced 37 turnovers on the night and came up with 24 steals.

Senior guard Jammie Coyle (Belle Fourche) led the steals parade with seven. Junior forward Memory Johannsen (Tolstoy) led a balanced NSU scoring attack with 15 points. Junior post Beth Carlson (Coon Rapid, Minn.) tallied 13 points, while power forward Shanna Dahl (St. Cloud, Minn.) chipped in 10 to go with seven rebounds. Senior post Jennifer Murphy led the team in rebounding with 11 boards. Freshman 6-4 post Tia Michalski (Willow Lake) ripped down six rebounds in six minutes of play. As a team, Northern completely dominated the boards, outrebounding BHSU 55-31 and coming up with more offensive rebounds (29) than defensive (26).

Mikuska almost reached two career milestones Thursday. After grabbing five steals against Black Hills State, she needs just one more to tie former NSU standout and current assistant coach Paula (Stolsmark) Krueger for fourth on NSU's career steals list with 185. Krueger will cling to the fourth slot for at least a few more days and into the next millennium. NSU hosts Moorhead State Sunday, Jan. 2 and Minnesota-Crookston Monday, Jan. 3.