Spartans upset top ranked South in overtime thriller

Playing in front of a huge and noisy packed house at the Spartandome, Fargo North pulled off the upset and gave top ranked Fargo South their first loss of the season, posting a 72-66 overtime win and snapping the Bruins' 48 game winning streak against EDC opponents. Fargo North was the aggressor the whole night, as they jumped out to a quick lead, lost that lead, then regained it midway through the first half and never trailed again. The Spartans shot the ball extremely well, hitting for 50% on the night, and in a statistical oddity, shot 50% in the first half, second half, and overtime. But it was the Spartan defense which caused most of the problems. The Spartan energy level and effort made things very difficult for the Bruins to establish any kind of rhythm offensively, and South struggled to get clean looks at the basket all night long. After falling behind early, South built a 14-6 lead, but thats when North started their rally. The Spartans went on a 13-4 run to take a 19-18 lead, then extended that to a 34-31 halftime lead. The second half though is where the Spartans began to take control of the game, maintaining a 5 to 8 point lead for most of the half. The Bruins just could never quite click on either end at the same time. When they put together some nice defensive stops, they couldn't convert on the offensive end, and when they did score on offense, the Spartans always had the answer on their end, and as a result, the Bruins played from behind the entire second half. Trailing by 8 at 56-48 with 7 minutes left in the game, it didn't look good for South, but the Bruins had one rally left in them. A basket by Meghan Roehrich, who led everyone with 22 points, scored to make it 56-50, then Raquel Wellentin made the first of her free throw attempts, missed the second, but followed up her own miss with a putback basket to make it 56-53 with plenty of time remaining. North star Alyssa Dehne followed with a pair of freethrows to make it 58-53, but Alley Fisher responded with a three point play in transition to make it 58-56 with under 5 minutes to play. A three pointer by Dehne gave the Spartans breathing room again, and it looked like North was in a position to put the game away, as they held a 63-61 lead and had the ball with less than a minute to play. After a Bruin foul though, a missed freethrow and a rebounding foul on North gave the Bruins life. Siri Burck made both freethrows to tie the game up at 63-63 with 55 seconds to play. The Bruins made a defensive stop and got the ball back with 30 seconds to play, but a pair of missed freethrows late sent the game into overtime. In the overtime session it was all Fargo North as they scored on an offensive putback, then hit back to back three pointers to stretch the lead out to 71-63, and the Bruins could not get closer than 5 points the rest of the way. Joining Meghan Roehrich in double figures was Raquel Wellentin with 12 points and 10 boards, and Alley Fisher, who had 13 points. The loss drops South to 9-1 overall and 5-1 in the EDC, and into a tie with Red River for the league lead, with the Spartans only a half game back. Next action for South is next Tuesday when they travel up to Devils Lake.

play by play of the game
complete boxscore

Boxscore:
Fargo South: Roehrich 5 12-21 22, Burck 3 3-3 9, Fisher 4 3-5 13, Wellentin 4 4-7 12, Moffett 4 0-0 8, Felch 1 0-0 2; Totals 21 22-36 66, Three point goals: Fisher 2

Fargo North: Dehne 3 6-6 13, Wixo 5 2-5 14, Larson 5 0-0 10, Teschendorf 2 0-2 4, Waller 3 0-0 6, Herschel 1 0-0 3, Reinholz 4 1-3 9, Scherer 2 1-5 6, Lopez 3 1-1 7; Totals: 28 11-22 72, Three point goals: Wixo 2, Herschel, Dehne, Scherer

Fouled out: Dehne; Total Fouls: South 21, FN 26; Rebounds: South 40(Wellentin 10), FN 42(Larson 8); Assists: South 12(Burck 6), FN 16(Dehne 5), Steals: South 13(Burck, Felch 3), FN 11(A. Dehne 5); Turnovers: South 19, FN 27