The Missouri State Lady Bears turned in a solid defensive effort and their best shooting performance from beyond the three-point arc this season to cruise to a 73-56 victory over the UNI Panthers in Missouri Valley Conference women’s basketball action Saturday afternoon at Hammons Student Center. MSU connected on 13-of-24 (.542) attempts from three-point range while limiting the Panthers to just .346 shooting to earn a season sweep of UNI and take over sole possession of fifth place in the MVC standings.
Playing on a sprained ankle, senior guard Tahnee Balerio led four Lady Bears in double figures with 18 points on 7-of-12 shooting. Balerio went 3-of-5 from long range, including two big treys during MSU’s decisive 17-0 first-half run. She also handed out a game-high five assists and recorded a career-high two blocks. The Lady Bears got a big game from Tiffany Coppage as well. The junior guard tallied a career-high 15 points on 5-of-10 shooting from three-point range.
Missouri State wasted little time in taking control of the contest, using a 21-1 scoring burst to build an 18-point lead midway through the first half. After UNI’s Jacqui Kalin scored the first points of the game on a jumper at the 18:43 mark, MSU reeled off the next 17 points and held the Panthers without a field goal for eight and-a-half minutes. Two Maggie Dwyer free throws with 10:17 to play in the half capped the critical run and gave the Lady Bears a 21-3 lead.
The Lady Bears knocked down 8-of-16 tries from three-point range and led by as many as 19 points in the first half. Coppage buried four of her five triples on the day in the opening period, the last of which gave MSU a 34-15 advantage with 3:12 to go in the half.
Despite shooting just 30.8 percent from the floor in the game’s first 20 minutes, UNI scored the last seven points of the first stanza to cut the margin to 36-24 at the break.
The Panthers trimmed their deficit to 10 points after Nicole Clausen sank a pair of free throws on their first possession of the second half. But Missouri State came right back with six straight points, as Balerio converted a three-point play and Marisha Brown drilled a three on the following trip down the floor to push the Lady Bear lead back to 16.
UNI (10-14 overall, 6-7 MVC) would get no closer than 12 points the rest of the way, as the Panthers struggled to connect from long range. After hitting just 1-of-10 first-half three-point attempts, UNI fared little better in the second period, shooting .222 (2-of-9) from beyond the arc.
Missouri State, which shot 48 percent from the floor in the opening half, was solid again in the second stanza, converting just under 46 percent of its field goal attempts, including 5-of-8 (.625) from three-point range. MSU would need only a season-low 49 field goal attempts to total their fourth straight 70-plus point offensive effort.
Brown posted her second straight double-digit scoring effort with a 12-point, seven-rebound performance. Dwyer finished in double figures for the 12 consecutive game, totaling 10 points to go along with three assists and three steals.
Missouri State, which improved to 9-15 overall and 7-6 in the Valley, will hit the road for a pair of MVC games next week, starting with a 6 p.m. matchup with Indiana State Thursday (Feb. 21) in Terre Haute, Ind. The Lady Bears will also take on league-leading Illinois State in Normal next Sunday (Feb. 24) in a 1:05 p.m. contest.
