Trojans Begin Conference Play with Long Standing Rivalry: Game Preview – #13 Dakota State vs Bellevue

The #13 Trojan Women’s Basketball team (12-4 overall) is on the road to begin North Star Athletic Association play as they’re set to face the Bellevue Bruins.

These two teams have a history of a back and forth conference rivalry. Bellevue (7-8 overall) holds the all-time series record at 9-8, with the Trojans having a chance to tie things up in this conference opener. DSU has won seven of the last eight meetings between the two teams. However, Bellevue is 6-2 at home in the all-time series against the Trojans.

Bellevue

The Bruins come into this game as an up-and-down roller coaster esque team. They’ve only notched back-to-back wins once this season and that was over a month ago.

Bellevue is led in scoring by junior Gabby Moore with 12.9 points per game. She has scored in double figures in 11 of 15 games this season. In her last five games, she is scoring at a slightly higher clip at 15.7 points a game while shooting 47% from the field and 19-for-38 from deep. One other player scores in double digits for the Bruins – that player being Ashtyn Arnold with 10.4 points per game.

This group scores just 62.3 points and allows 67.9 on the year. Head Coach Dave Denly is the man at the helm for this Bruin ball club. He has a 476-256 career record, 128-55 at Bellevue coming into this season. Denly is the only HC in Bellevue Women’s Basketball history. His tenure began back on June 4, 2015 and his is in his eighth season.

Dakota State

For Dakota State, they’re coming off a win (against #8 ranked Briar Cliff) in which head coach David Moe stated was “arguably the best win we’ve had in my time as coach here in the regular season.” The Trojans will look to build off that momentum against the Chargers and carry it into this NSAA matchup.

DSU is led in scoring by Savannah Walsdorf with 15.4 points per outing. Who has seemingly gotten even better over the course of the season in every category. Angela Slattery follows Walsdorf in scoring at 10.4 points per game. Slattery, who started the years off struggling a bit with her shot has turned it up as the season has progressed. She is coming off career-highs in scoring (20), field goals made (7) and threes made in a game (5).

An area where the Trojans will need to watch themselves is the turnover department. The majority of which as of late have all been self-inflicted wounds. DSU hasn’t had less than 17 turnovers in a game since the first game of the Dakota State Classic back on Dec. 1 when they faced (RV) College of the Ozarks and committed just 13 turnovers.

In their last outing, they had 25 turnovers tied for a season-high. In their last five games, they’re averaging 20.8 a game. Prior to these last five, the Trojans had just two 20 or more turnover games.

Tipoff against the Bruins is set for 1pm today with pregame beginning at 12:45pm.