No. 3 Oral Roberts notched a 91-68 victory over No. 6 North Dakota in the second game of Sunday’s quarterfinals at the 2024 Summit League Women’s Basketball Championships in Sioux Falls.
The first quarter was basket-for-basket for awhile, but ORU established a three possession lead near the end of the frame. Taleyah Jones wasted no time for the Golden Eagles, tallying 10 of her 23 points in the first quarter. Jalei Oglesby tacked on eight of her own for ORU. UND got five points apiece out of Kacie Borowicz and Kiyah Hurst in the first.
The Fighting Hawks added another 17 points in the second quarter, but trailed by nine at the half.
Out of the break, ORU outscored UND 27-15, using the third quarter to stretch the lead, which would ultimately be too much for UND to handle.
Jones and Oglesby combined for 50 points and 11 rebounds on the day. Oglesby’s 27 points is the most she’s scored in a contest with a Division I opponent. This was the first conference tournament game for both players.
Jones commented on the environment in the arena.
“We were just so excited to do this, and so I know we had a few nerves, but I think that eventually as we started playing that we had it and we just got in our flow, just played our game.”
Oglesby talked about the message that Coach Kelsi Musick communicated this week.
“Like Coach Musick has been saying all week, to activate our faith, and that’s really what we did. The faith in the Lord, faith in ourselves, faith in our coaches, and we’re going to continue to do that.”
Coach Musick elaborated on empty possessions and what she wants to clean up for the next game.
“We’re gonna speed the game up and there’s gonna be more possessions. At the end of the day, we didn’t share the ball… more in the third and the fourth quarter. We’ve gotta share it a little bit more, try to find a little bit better shots… We’ve gotta make sure we’re very precise.”
For UND, Coach Mallory Bernhard spoke passionately about her team’s commitment throughout the season.
“Moments like this are hard. When you know you have players that have given their heart and soul. You know, Kacie’s sitting here next to me, had an unbelievable career, chose to come back to North Dakota, using her fifth year. That’s not happening everywhere. That’s special.. it pains me that we couldn’t get her a win in Sioux Falls… would have loved to have given our seniors an opportunity to put the uniform on one more time.”
Coach Bernhard also spoke on what it means to her to have coached Borowicz in the same program that she herself played for.
“It means a lot. Obviously she’s a phenomenal player. She’s probably at times made me look smarter than I am.. it definitely means a lot. I hope I helped her along the way.. she’s a special player.”
Kacie Borowicz commented on her time in Grand Forks.
“I gave it my all. I was loyal to UND.”
Freshman Kiyah Hurst echoed the praise for Kacie.
“I’ve grown a lot from being a freshman. Sammiyah and Kacie really helped me.. I am where I am today because of them.”
Borowicz surpassed the 2000 career points in the final regular season game, becoming just the fourth UND player in program history to accomplish the feat. Today, with her penultimate point at the line, Borowicz moved into third place on UND’s all-time scoring list. She scored 26 points today.
UND finished the season 5-11 in the conference, and 9-21 overall.
No. 3 Oral Roberts will face No. 2 North Dakota State in a 3 p.m. semifinal matchup Monday, March 11 at the Denny Sanford PREMIER Center in Sioux Falls. The game will be televised on CBS Sports Network.