Independent file photo: Southwest Minnesota State University guard Sam Wall (14) examines the Winona State University defense during a women’s basketball game on Feb. 11, 2023, in Marshall. The annual “Tropical Night” game will be played on Saturday night, as SMSU will host Northern State University

Coming off a lopsided win over Minnesota Crookston on Saturday, the Southwest Minnesota State womens basketball team will look to continue its recent hot streak when it hosts UMary and Northern State on Friday and Saturday.

In its last matchup on Saturday, SMSU took down Crookston 99-62 to pick up its 10th consecutive win, its longest streak since it won 11 in a row in 2001-02. The win was also SMSU’s most points in a game since the 2000-01 season.

Madison Gehloff led the team with 18 points while Hannah Parsley’s season-high 17 points tied her with Sam Wall. Peyton Blandin had the hot hand from long range, shooting 4-of-7 from beyond the arc to score 12 points, while Bri Stoltzman finished with 11 points, seven assists and six rebounds.

The Mustangs’ surge has brought them to 12-6 overall on the season and 10-2 in conference play, tied with Northern State (14-4 overall) for second in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference. UMary sits right behind them at 12-8 on the season and 8-4 in conference play.

SMSU, UMary and Northern State make up three of the NSIC’s four highest-scoring offenses. SMSU sits at second in the conference at 76.6 points per game, trailing only Minnesota State’s 77.9. UMary is third at 68.6 while Northern State is fourth at 66.9.

The Marauders split their matchups last weekend, defeating Winona State 76-50 before falling 76-66 to the conference-leading Minnesota State Mavericks. Megan Zander scored 21 points on 4-of-5 shooting from beyond the arc against Winona State while Lexie Schneider added another 12 points, five assists and seven rebounds. A day later, Schneider scored 22 points with 12 rebounds while Zander added 16 points and eight rebounds in the loss to Minnesota State.

Schneider is the conference’s leading scorer so far this season, averaging 20.6 points per game on 55% from the field. While Zander’s offense comes almost entirely from inside the arc — she’s attempted just one 3-pointer on the season — Zander and Mariah McKeever help space the floor. Zander has shot 38% from long range this year on 101 attempts while McKeever has attempted 74 3s at a 50% clip. They average 12.4 and 12.2 points per game respectively.

As a team, UMary ranks fourth in the conference with a 33.4% 3-point percentage and their 380 attempts trail only Minot State’s 433 and SMSU’s 485 attempts. Unfortunately for the Marauders, they’re unlikely to outshoot the Mustangs, who lead the conference with a 35.5% clip. On the defensive end of the court, SMSU has also been among the conference’s best teams at defending the perimeter, holding opponents to 26.1% from 3-point range. Only Bemidji State’s 23.1% allowed is better on the season.

Turnovers and rebounding are going to be among this weekend’s games’ deciding factors for the Mustangs. UMary and Northern State rank 10th and 14th out of 15 teams in the NSIC in turnover margin at minus-1.05 and minus-2.78 respectively. SMSU, meanwhile, has put together a plus-1.61 turnover margin to rank fourth in the conference on the year. Stoltzman and Parsley each rank in the top 10 in the conference in steals per game at 1.9 and 1.8 respectively.

In terms of the rebounding battle, the Mustangs have performed well despite typically running a five-guard lineup, averaging a plus-3.2 margin on the glass. Northern State and UMary, however, are the conference’s leaders on the glass at plus-6.5 and plus-4.0 respectively. Schneider leads the NSIC with 9.4 rebounds per game — 1.5 more than the next closest player, Minnesota State Moorhead’s Terryn Johnson — while Rianna Fillipi and Madelyn Bragg rank fifth and eighth for Northern State at 7.2 and 7.1 rebounds per game. Stoltzman leads SMSU with 6.8 boards per game, ranking 11th in the conference.

Bragg was named the NSIC Week 10 Player of the Week on Monday. The sophomore forward led the Wolves to a 71-61 win over fourth-place Concordia-St. Paul and an 81-70 win over sixth-place Minnesota Duluth last week. She finished with 18 points on 9-of-17 shooting and six blocks against the Golden Bears on Friday and recorded 35 points, nine rebounds and a pair of steals against the Bulldogs on Saturday. Fillipi also added 15 points on Friday and 16 on Saturday.

Bragg’s big game pushed her up to second among the conference’s scoring leaders at 20.4 points per game on the season. While her volume has been excellent, it hasn’t come at the expense of efficiency; her 56% shooting from the field puts her just ahead of Schneider for best in the conference. Stoltzman also ranks eighth in the NSIC in terms of efficiency at 46% while clocking in as the conference’s third-leading scorer with 18 points per game.

Fillipi is top 20 in the conference in terms of scoring but her main value lies in her ability as a distributor; while Northern State ranks second-to-last in the NSIC as a team in turnover margin, Fillipi’s 1.8 assist-to-turnover ratio leads the conference, as do her five assists per game. Stolzman is fourth in both categories, averaging 3.4 assists per game with a 1.2:1 ratio.

Under head coach Tom Webb, SMSU has gone 4-3 against UMary and 1-5 against Northern State.

SMSU’s lone win against the Wolves came by a 74-49 victory in Marshall on Feb. 8, 2020. Sam Wall was the only Mustang to score in that game that’s still playing this season, scoring 10 points on 3-of-4 shooting from long range in the win. Northern State won the teams’ matchup last year, 82-62. Fillipi finished with 25 points, 12 rebounds and six assists while Parsley and Wall led SMSU with 16 and 15 points respectively.

UMary won its last matchup against SMSU by a final score of 89-74 in Bismarck, N.D. Stoltzman finished with 24 points on 9-of-16 shooting while Blandin added another 12 points on 5-of-7 from the field with a pair of 3-pointers. Zander led UMary with 16 points, six rebounds and four assists.

The Mustangs’ game against UMary will tip off in the R/A Facility at 5:30 p.m. on Friday and they’ll get started against Northern State at 5 p.m. on Saturday. A radio broadcast of the game can be found at 105.1 FM KARL while live video and stats are available online at SMSUmustangs.com