How It Happened
Another road game, another road victory as this time the Colorado School of Mines (9-2, 7-0) picked up a 67-53 victory at New Mexico Highlands behind a monster effort from senior Courtney Martin on Saturday, January 2.
Martin was simply unstoppable for the most of the game as she poured 17 points, grabbed nine rebounds and swatted a career-high five shots. She led Mines' dominant effort in the paint where they outscored the Cowgirls 32-10.
The Orediggers did not get off to an ideal start as the Cowgirls came out shooting lights out in lieu to a 16-6 advantage six minutes into the opening quarter. As they have most of the season, the Mines defense came to life and clamped down on Highlands and didn't allow them to score the rest of the quarter as they got back to within three, 16-13, on baskets from three different Orediggers.
Mines then finally tied the game back up at 18 when redshirt-freshman Emily Bailey drove baseline and hit a pullback jumper at 7:18 in the second quarter. It didn't last long through as New Mexico Highlands came back with two three-pointers to push its advantage out to 24-19.
The seesawing continued though as Mines came right back with a bucket from redshirt-freshman Mikaela Moore followed by freshman Cassidy Budge driving into the lane to earn a three the 'old-fashioned' way with a layup and subsequent free throw.
Mines finally took the lead briefly, 26-24, on senior Courtney Martin's turnaround jumper at 3:26 before Giulia Simioni drilled a three a minute later. The Orediggers finished out the half on a 4-0 run with buckets from Martin and Bailey to take a 30-27 lead into the break.
The run ballooned to 8-0 with buckets from freshman Anna Kollmorgen and junior Laura Tyree to give the team a 34-27 lead early in the second half. Highlands continued to fight back though and got back within two at two different points, but Kollmorgen capped the quarter with a huge three ball at the buzzer to give Mines a 46-41 lead at the end of the third.
Courntey Martin pushed the lead back up to seven at 48-41, but once again Highlands came right back with five quick points from Kylee Reibel to get the advantage back to three. Mines then responded as well with a shot clock beating pullback three ball from Tyree before Martin took over to push the lead out 55-46 with 6:27 to go.
From there it became fairly academic for the Orediggers continued to pour it on as they got up by 17 at one point before settling in for the 67-53 victory. Leading 46-41 at the start of the fourth quarter, Mines finished the game on a 21-12 final run.
Notables
- With the victory, Mines has now tied a program record with nine consecutive victories. The only other time the Orediggers women's basketball program did that was back in the 2004-05 season.
- With losses by CSU-Pueblo and Black Hills State, Mines is now the final team unbeaten in RMAC play. The Orediggers assumed sole possession of first place in the RMAC Mountain division after Pueblo's buzzerbeater loss to Regis.
- The Orediggers shot 45.2% (28-62) while holding the Cowgirls to only 27.1% shooting on the evening.
- For the second consecutive night Mines has seven combined blocks with Courtney Martin's five being a huge reason behind that.
- Freshman Anna Kollmorgen had huge night as the Des Moines, Iowa native scored career-high 14 points on 5-of-6 shooting. She was also 2-of-2 from behind the arc.
- Two unusual statistics were that Mines won the fast break battle (10-2) which is something they rarely do, but lost the second-chance points category, 16-2.
Up Next
Mines will return home to Golden next weekend when they host Adams State and Fort Lewis on Friday and Saturday, January 8-9. The Orediggers defeated both the Grizzles and Skyhawks and their earlier encounter.
