St. Paul, MN - MLC women's basketball squared off against Northwestern for the nightcap. The Eagles entered the contest in first place with a 3-0 record in UMAC play, while the Knights looked to pick up their first conference win of the season. The game featured a lot of swings and momentum filled runs, but the Eagles maintained the lead throughout the second half and held on to beat the Knights 72-62.
    
    UNW had the hot hand from the perimeter in the first half and used their efficient shooting to jump out to a 38-16 lead at the 3:20 mark of the second quarter. The offensive flurry from Northwestern forced Coach Gawrisch to use a timeout. Following the timeout, the Knights went on a 14-0 run, with Emma Nelson getting things going with a 3-pointer, while Lydia Feidt hit an outside shot from the corner to pull MLC within 8 (38-30) at halftime.

   The late first half run was ended by a Livvy Grosch 3-pointer to start the second half for the Eagles, but the Knights answered back with consecutive layups to remain in the game. The rest of the third quarter was tightly contested, but the Eagles would separate a bit from MLC, going up by 7 (49-42) at the end of the third quarter.

    UNW found a solution to MLC's 2-3 zone at the beginning of the fourth quarter after multiple 3-pointers from Jasmine Sondrol in the corner. The shot gave the Eagles their biggest lead of the second half. However, MLC did not back down, going on a 10-0 run, which was led by Lydia Feidt, who connected on consecuitve layups, after deflecting passes in UNW's half court offense. The game was now 64-59 after a Jordyn Heckendorf layup at the 3:10 mark, but the Eagles slowed the game down at that point and got to the foul line and played tougher defense to seal the victory over the Knights in the final minutes.

The Knights received a big game from Emma Nelson who had key offensive rebounds and putbacks that kept MLC in the game. Nelson finished with another ouble-double (22 points and 10 rebounds), while Lydia Feidt had 17 points and five steals.

The Knights now fall to (6-8, 0-4) on the season and will head down the road to North Central for a 4:45 matchup on Saturday.