The UW-Eau Claire women’s basketball team will begin its NCAA Division III tournament play at Zorn Arena on Friday (Mar. 4) against North Central University, a Minneapolis school that won the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference tournament by defeating Minnesota-Morris 52-47.
The Blugolds assured themselves of the WIAC’s automatic bid to the national tournament Friday night by overcoming a 13-point second half deficit to overwhelm UW-Whitewater 77-63 and win their first conference tournament title since 2003. That team made it to the Final Four and finished in third place.
UW-EC Athletics Director Dan Schumacher said the Blugolds’ game will tip off at 7:30 p.m. Friday. It will be preceded at 5 p.m. by a matchup between Millikin and Wartburg, two at-large entries in this year’s tournament.
The Friday winners will play at 5 p.m. Saturday for the right to advance to the Sweet Sixteen round. Tickets will be priced at $10, with a $7 charge for seniors and students, according to Schumacher.
Two other WIAC teams — UW-Whitewater and UW Oshkosh — received at-large bids to the 64-team field.
Friday night victory
In Friday night’s championship victory over UW-Whitewater, the Blugolds trailed by as much as 12 points in the first half before a late run left them down by eight at the break. Three minutes into the second half, Jessie Ruden – the WIAC’S leading scorer in the regular season – started a personal 13-point run that tied the game at 48 with 4:14 left in the quarter.
Ruden added two more points to her scoring streak after a Warhawk basket, to tie the game again at 50. Kylie Mogen’s jump shot with 1:05 to play – on an assist by Ruden – put the Blugolds up 57-55 and they never looked back.
Ruden finished with 31 points, 19 of them in the third quarter. She missed the final eight minutes of the game after her head hit the floor hard following a foul by Whitewater guard Rebekah Schumacher.
The Blugolds’ two-point margin starting the fourth quarter had grown only to 61-57 when Ruden left the game with 7:59 to play. From there, UW-EC went on a 16-4 run capped by six made free throws by guard Courtney Crouch, who had 20 points for the game with 10 of them in the fourth quarter.
Free throws were a major difference in the outcome, with the Blugolds converting 28 of 31 while Whitewater hit three of only seven attempts. The Warhawks shot at a 34% clip from the floor but were 4 for 20 in the fourth quarter, when they missed all 10 of their three-point attempts.
The Blugolds hit 14 of their 25 second-half field goal attempts, after making just nine of 30 first-half shots.
NOTE: This story was reported by David Gordon, associate editor. Photos came from the UW-Eau Claire Blugolds’ website.