March 4, 2013
This week in Coyote athletics
VERMILLION, S.D.--South Dakota's Bethany Buell competes in the pole vault at the Track and Field Indoor National Championships, men's and women's basketball play at the Summit League Tournament and softball continues competition at the Rebel Spring Games this week in Coyote athletics.
Bethany Buell, who has the nation's fifth-best vault at 14-feet 5.5-inches, will represent USD at the NCAA Indoor Championships on March 8-9. The women's pole vault finals are at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday.
Women's basketball (15-14, 10-6 SL) enters the Summit League Tournament as the three seed and will take on six-seed North Dakota State at Sioux Falls Arena on Sunday (2:30 p.m.) in the opening round of the Summit League tournament. USD closed the regular season with a 50-39 win at Omaha on Thursday.
The Coyotes split the regular season series with the Bison, winning the first match up 73-52 in Fargo, N.D., and losing 57-50 in the DakotaDome on Feb. 2. Nicole Seekamp led the team in scoring in both outings, pouring in 20 on the road and 19 at home.
The USD men (10-19, 5-11 SL) will play Western Illinois on Saturday at 8:30 p.m. for the first round of the league tournament.
The Leathernecks have defeated the Coyotes twice in a pair of nail-bitters, winning 73-71 in the DakotaDome on Nov. 29 and 61-59 in Macomb, Ill., on Saturday. In the first go-round Juevol Myles hit a game-tying 3-pointer with five seconds, but Ceola Clark responded by taking the ball coast-to-coast for a running jumper in the lane to lift WIU to victory.
On Sunday USD jumped out to a 15-4 lead, but the Leathernecks came back to knot the score at 23-all at the half and Clark proceeded to pour in six second-half three-pointers to help his team win.
Softball (10-8, 0-0 SL) has eight games remaining at the Rebel Spring Games in Kissimmee, Fla. USD will play two games each on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Lindsey Boyd set the school's career steals record in the tournament opener against Detroit Mercy, and the Coyotes have won three of four games after two days of play.
Women's tennis is in the midst of a week-long trip to Florida during which the team will play in seven duals. The Coyotes defeated Wartburg 7-0 on Sunday in Orlando, Fla., improving their record to 4-3 this spring.
Women's golf spent Saturday and Sunday at the Northern Arizona Tournament where they finished 18th out of 21 teams competing. Hailey Sheldahl, who missed the fall season with an injury, was USD's top finisher at 25-over-par, which placed her 91st out of the field of 125. The women have this weekend off before traveling to the Drake-Monterey Bay Tournament in California March 17-19.
