Morningside’s No. 1-ranked women’s basketball team moved on in the GPAC Post-Season Tournament with a quarterfinal round victory against Dakota Wesleyan.

Taylor Bahensky

No. 1-ranked Morningside turned back a pesky Dakota Wesleyan team to move on in the GPAC Women’s Basketball Post-Season Tournament with an 83-72 quarterfinal round victory on Wednesday in Sioux City.

The unbeaten Mustangs, now 31-0, will host city rival Briar Cliff in Saturday’s semifinals.

Morningside defeated Dakota Wesleyan for the 22nd time in a row and extended its school-record home court winning streak to 38 games, but the triumph didn’t come easy. The Tigers, who bowed out at 14-17, led for most of the first half and stayed within five points of the heavily favored Mustangs for almost the entire second half.

The Mustangs took the lead for good when Lexi Ackerman made a free throw to put the hosts up 61-60 with 9:59 left to play, but they never led by more than five points until the final two minutes of the game when they outscored the Tigers 6-0 to pull away.

Taylor Bahensky led the Mustangs with 16 points and fellow starter Ashlynn Muhl was right behind with 14 points and a game-high 13 rebounds for her 14th double-double of the season and her sixth in the last eight games.

Allison Bachman

The Mustangs also received a pair of double figure scoring performances from the bench as Allison Bachman went for 14 points and Jessica Tietz came close to a double-double with 13 tallies and eight rebounds. Tietz scored in double figures for the second game in a row, while Bachman has scored at an 11-point clip with 44 points in the last four games.

Ackerman just missed double figures with eight points to go along with a game and season’s high eight assists. Jordyn Wollenburg supplied seven points and six rebounds, while Brandan Tighe and Madison Braun capped the Mustangs’ scoring with six and five points, respectively.

Dakota Wesleyan’s Katie Johnson led all scorers with 19 points behind an eight-for-12 shooting performance from the field. She was joined in double figures by Kristin Sabers with 12 points, Celeste Beck with 11, and Chesney Nagel with 10 points and a team-high eight rebounds.

Morningside outrebounded the Tigers 37-32 to win the battle of the boards for the 22nd time in its 31 games this season.

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