BROOKINGS — Brooklyn Meyer scored 30 points and South Dakota State used a strong start and strong finish to hold off North Dakota 87-73 on Saturday in front of 3,129 fans at First Bank & Trust Arena.
It was the Jackrabbits' 52nd Summit League win in a row, and their 17th straight against the Fighting Hawks.
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UND was coming off a head-turning 80-54 win over the USD Coyotes, and while they never truly threatened to win Saturday's game (which was the front end of a women's/men's doubleheader), the Hawks also refused to go away, essentially going toe-to-toe with the reigning league champs for the final three quarters.
That made the first quarter important. SDSU used a 12-2 run to go up 26-12 late in the first, and it looked like the Jacks were well on their way to another ho-hum 30-point victory. But that didn't happen, and while Jacks coach Aaron Johnston said his team could've defended better, he mostly gave credit to UND for battling for 40 minutes.
"We've got to be a little better and more efficient defensively but I thought North Dakota played well," Johnston said. "They do a good job of spreading you out and making it hard to help and they did some really good things offensively. We made it a little easier for them than we'd like to but credit to them. They take great shots, they move the ball really well and they are hard to defend."
The Meyer Twins (they're not really twins) did the heavy lifting, with Brooklyn going 11-of-17 from the floor and 8-of-9 from the line for her second career 30-point game, while Paige had 11 points and 10 assists.
"We've got a lot of great players on our team so when I'm out there I'm trying to find anyone that's open," Paige Meyer said. "I know everyone can knock shots down so I was just looking for open teammates."
The teams traded points evenly throughout the second and third quarters, but that first quarter deficit still left the Hawks trailing by double digits. But with SDSU failing to put them away they figured to make a run at some point and they finally did in the fourth, getting within five at 74-69 on a Jocelyn Schiller 3-pointer with 4:28 to play.
That was as close as they'd get, however, with the Jacks closing the game on a 13-4 run.
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Madison Mathiowetz had 14 points and eight rebounds for SDSU (15-3, 5-0), while Haleigh Timmer added 12 points.
Schiller led the Hawks (8-11, 3-3) with 19 points while Kiera Pemberton had 15, Walker Demers 13 and Mikayla Aumer 10.
The Jacks outshot UND 53 percent to 47 and won the glass 34-26. They also had an 18-5 advantage in points off turnovers and 46-32 in the paint.
"It was really physical and it's good for us to have to battle it out," Brooklyn Meyer said. "(UND) played really well and were really aggressive on offense and defense. We just stuck with it."
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