HELENA —After a chippy contest, No. 2 seed Carroll College Fighting Saints again find themselves just one win from the NAIA national tournament site in Sioux City, Iowa, by downing No. 15 Rochester University (Mich.), 75-66 on Tuesday night.
The Fighting Saints jumped out to a hot start in the contest, before the Warriors made their presence known ending the first half at 37-37 deadlock. In the second half Kyndall Keller rattled off 13 of her 18 points to help lead the Saints to victory.
Co-Frontier MVP Jamie Pickens had a game-high 23 points while adding 11 rebounds. Elysia Mattos and Jacara Thompson both shot a team-high 11 points for the Warriors on Tuesday night.
The Saints will now face Jamestown (N.D.) on Wednesday in the P.E. Center at 7:05 p.m. with the winner punching its ticket to Sioux City.
Elsewhere ...
Montana Western 79, Philander Smith 48
PARK, Kan. — Montana Western, a No. 3 seed, rolled past Philander Smith (Ark.) 79-48 in its first-round matchup Tuesday.
The Bulldogs did it with hustle, scoring 22 points off 14 turnovers and matching their season high with 50 team rebounds. Western hit 44.8% of its shots, including 11 3-pointers.
Jordan Sweeney and Shainy Mack each scored 19 points for the Bulldogs, while co-Frontier MVP Brynley Fitzgerald had 14 points, eight rebounds and three assists. The win moved Western into a second-round game Wednesday, where it will try to earn a trip to Sioux City.
"Goal No. 1 was to try to take care of business today. I thought the team certainly came out ready to play from the get go." Western coach Lindsay Woolley said in a press release.
"We wanted to try to get the ball into the paint and stop them from getting into the paint. It sounds simple, but sometimes it is kind of hard for us to do it. For the most part, I thought we did a really good job of it."
Rocky Mountain 68, Menlo 62
LEWISTON, Idaho — Kloie Thatcher scored 30 points Tuesday to lead No. 11 seed Rocky Mountain College to a 68-62 win over No. 6 seed Menlo (Calif.) in the first round. Thatcher made 9 of 16 field goals and hit four 3-pointers. She added four assists, four steals and three rebounds.
Gracee Lekvold scored 14 points and hit three 3-pointers of her own for the Battlin' Bears. She had five rebounds. Ky Buell also had 14 points and Dominique Stephens grabbed a team-high six rebounds for Rocky.
With the win, the Bears moved on to play a second-round game Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. Mountain time with a bid to the national tournament final site in Sioux Falls on the line.
(This story will be updated)
