| Lady Yellowjackets Face No. 1 Seattle
Pacific in Regional Semifinals (March 14, 2003)
SEATTLE, WA – The fourth-seeded Montana State
University-Billings women’s basketball team will
face the top-ranked team in the nation Saturday
night when the Lady Jackets (21-6) take on unbeaten
Seattle Pacific (28-0) in the NCAA West Regional
semifinals. MSU Billings dismantled No. 5 Central
Washington 91-69 in the opening round, while Seattle
Pacific held off No. 8 Chico State 81-70.
The Yellowjackets led by as much as 30 in the first
half of Friday’s game and were paced by senior Joan
Langford’s career-high 20 points. Langford
connected on 4-of-5 three-point attempts as the
Jackets shot 64 percent from behind the arc against
the Wildcats. After trailing 4-3 early in the game,
Langford connected on back-to-back threes to spark
the Yellowjacket offense to a 42-11 run that put the
game out of reach.
Five players scored double figures for MSUB,
including four of the five senior starters. Senior
forward Natalie Visger recorded her 24th career double-double with 17 points and 11
rebounds. Senior guard Jessica Bachmann hit 6-of-8
field goals for 14 points, 12 of which came in the
first-half onslaught. Senior center Jessie Henigman
was good on 4-of-5 attempts for 11 points. She also
grabbed eight rebounds and blocked seven shots.
Henigman now has 98 blocked shots for the season and
269 in her career, moving her to No. 15 in NCAA II
history.
Kelley Berglund scored 30 points and helped fight
off a second-half comeback attempt by Cal
State-Chico to lead top-ranked Seattle Pacific to an
81-70 win over the Wildcats in the final game of
the opening round. SPU, which led by 14 at halftime
(45-31), never trailed, but saw a 16-point
second-half lead shrink to five (61-56) with 8:07
left.
Berglund took over at that point scoring SPU’s next
eight points as the Falcons stretched their lead
back to 11 points (72-61) with 3:48 remaining. In
addition to her 30 points, a post-season record for
SPU, Berglund also had 15 rebounds, including six at
the offensive end, as the Falcons outboarded the
Wildcats 51-36.
The Yellowjackets and Falcons are scheduled to
tip-off at 8:00 p.m. MST on Saturday. The winner
will play for the West Region Championship on
Monday. MSUB and SPU, former Pacific West
Conference foes, have met 25 times in their
history. The Yellowjackets are 14-11 overall, but
just 3-10 at Royal Brougham Pavilion. The two teams
last met on February 10, 2001 with the Falcons
prevailing 71-53 in Seattle. The five Yellowjacket
seniors are 3-2 against SPU in their four years,
including a 79-64 victory at the 2000 NCAA West
Regional in Pomona, CA.
Saturday’s semifinal match-up can be heard live on
News Radio AM 970 KBUL. The voice of the
Yellowjackets, Pat Boland, will be calling the
play-by-play from Seattle. The game can also be
heard on the Yellowjackets website at
www.msubillings.edu/athletics.
Saturday’s first semifinal at 5 p.m. will match
Northwest Nazarene (20-8), which upset Western
Washington 83-79 and Cal State Bakersfield (27-1),
which rallied from a 10-point deficit with 5:21 left
in regulation to beat Cal State Stanislaus 116-106
in overtime. Saturday’s two winners advance to
Monday’s title game at 7 p.m.
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