Photo by Jake McNeill: Southwest Minnesota State University guard Audrey Swanson goes up for a contested layup in the paint during the first quarter of a Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference womens basketball game against Augustana on Feb. 19 in Marshall.

MARSHALL — Audrey Swanson scored a game-high 24 points in her final regular-season home game as a member of the Southwest Minnesota State University womens basketball team Thursday night against Augustana. The Mustangs capitalized on the performance, pulling away late in the third quarter to claim a 74-71 Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference win.

Swanson was one of four seniors on the team recognized in a postgame ceremony. Alongside her was starting forward Maddie Thorfinnson, center Kenadi Buchholz and Zoie Centers. Centers was unavailable to play her senior season due to an injury.

“I love my teammates, I’m going to miss my teammates. That’s the biggest thing about this whole experience for me is that I met some amazing people and I’m sad to leave them,” Swanson said.

“It’s definitely hard knowing that this might be one of my last times on the court. Just to look at the crowd and see everybody out there, but we know we just had to work hard to get the job done and get a win,” Buchholz said.

Starting center Natalie Nielsen was unavailable for the game due to an injury, but Buchholz stepped up when needed by SMSU. She played nine minutes in the first half, tying her season-high for a full game, and finished the night with 17 minutes on the court. Her 8 points on 3 of 4 shooting tied her season total heading into the night.

“It definitely sucks when one of your own goes down, so you’ve just got to look forward, try to keep your head up, play for her and just work as hard as you can to step up into that position,” Buchholz said.”

Trailing by 6 points in the final minute-and-a-half, Miranda Lomax knocked down a 3 for Augustana to make it a one-possession game. Kylan Gerads showed off some fancy footwork in the post to get a layup for the Mustangs, but Ava Pautz responded with one of her own to keep the game within reach for the visitors.

SMSU looked to be in position to seal the win again after Gerads came up with another clutch layup and Cristina Wagner blocked a shot on the defensive end. Yet, with Augustana taking over after the shot went out of bounds, Pautz came up with a layup to keep it a 3-point game with 14 seconds left.

The Vikings forced a turnover on Swanson’s ensuing inbound pass to get one last chance to tie the game, but Wagner once again stood tall in the post and forced Isabella Sanneh to miss a layup with one second left and secure the win.

“We’ve been through a lot this season, and we really took our resilience and hard work to the court,” Swanson said. “We worked well together as a team. We all needed to step up and get some points, so we just went out there, played for our teammates, played for our seniors and played for the injured.”

Swanson led SMSU with 24 points, tying Sanneh for a game-high. Swanson shot 7 of 20 from the field with four 3-pointers and made each of her six free throw attempts.

In addition to her contributions as a scorer, Swanson also grabbed 11 rebounds, blocked a shot and came away with a pair of steals. As a result, SMSU finished with a 10-16 edge in the turnover battle.

Gerads also had a big game for the Mustangs, shooting an efficient 6 of 13 from the field for 20 points.

The Mustangs pulled ahead over the last two-and-a-half minutes of the third quarter. Leading by 2 points, the Mustangs closed out the frame with 8 unanswered points, 5 of which came from Swanson, for a 60-50 edge heading into the fourth.

“I think we really connected well, all of our five on the floor could really guard all of their five on the floor,” Swanson said. “We shook off our mistakes and we played really good team defense.”

Shooting was among the game’s key equalizers. Augustana shot 52% from the field to SMSU’s 38%, but the Mustangs shot 36% on 25 3-point attempts compared to 30% on 10 attempts for Augustana. SMSU also shot 19 of 22 from the free-throw line while Augustana shot 12 of 23.

Augustana trailed for all but the first two minutes of the first half. After a strong close to the first to cut the gap to 3 at halftime, however, the Vikings came out strong in the second and tied the game up at 40-all on a Kristen Edmonds 3 in the first minute of the second.

Nicole Maenke responded quickly for the Mustangs, knocking down a 3-pointer and the Mustangs retained a steady one- or two-possession lead from there.

Maliyah Elliot hit a layup for Augustana in the game’s first possession, but that was the lone lead of the game for the Vikings. Gerads answered with a layup on the ensuing possession for the Mustangs, and paint points from Buchholz and Gerads and a Swanson 3 quickly gave the Mustangs a 9-4 lead.

The Mustangs started to pull away with four minutes left in the fourth quarter, with back-to-back 3s from Swanson and Maddie Thorfinnson bringing the cushion to 9 points.

Gerads knocked down a 3 and Buchholz followed with a layup to give the Mustangs their first double-digit lead of the game, 24-14, with 8:03 to play in the first half.

The Mustangs led by as many as 12 before Augustana started to chip away. Trailing 33-26, the Vikings went on a 6-1 run, with the last 4 points coming from Isabella Sanneh, to make it a one-possession game.

Swanson hit a layup with 71 seconds left in the half to give SMSU a little bit of breathing room, but an Ava Pautz jumper and a Sanneh free throw cut the gap to 36-35.

Getting possession back with 40 seconds to play, SMSU was fouled to reset the shot clock. Sanneh blocked a layup attempt from Swanson out of bounds with six seconds left on the clock, but Brynn Busse was fouled on the ensuing inbound pass to put the Mustangs in the bonus. She made both shots from the charity stripe to go up 38-35 at the break.

The Mustangs continued to pull away in the fourth quarter. Swanson connected from 3-point range to give SMSU its largest lead of the game to date, 65-52, to prompt an Augustana timeout with 8:30 to play.

SMSU improves to 15-11 overall and 13-8 in conference play with the win. The Mustangs close out their regular-season schedule on the road this weekend, taking on Wayne State (Neb.) in Rice Auditorium on Saturday at 1 p.m.

Now locked into the fifth or sixth seed in the conference standings, the Mustangs will return to their home court one last time this season when they host the first round of the NSIC tournament on Wednesday at 5:30 or 6 p.m. SMSU has advanced to at least the semifinals of the tournament each of the last four years and at least the quarterfinals each of the last five.

“The four seniors on the team have been through something special here at SMSU,” Swanson said. “We’ve had a lot of wins, we’ve been through lots of things together, but we’ve made it super far every year and we’re hoping to do it again.”