MANKATO, Minn. —The Bethany Lutheran women's basketball team (16-6 overall, 11-0 UMAC) defeated Crown College (5-13, 1-10) Friday night in a barnburner, 95-78.
BLC started the game hitting eight of its first 10 shots from the floor, and led 27-12 after the opening frame.
The Storm outscored the Vikings 21-11 over the final eight minutes of the first half, bringing them to within eight, 45-37.
Bethany shot 59.4% from the floor in the half while holding Crown to 44.4% shooting over that same period. It also held a 30-10 advantage in points in the paint and a 13-5 advantage in assists.
After a back-and-forth third quarter, the Vikings led 70-60. Senior Hanna Geistfeld (Truman, Minn.) became the program's all-time leading rebounder in the frame when she grabbed her 1,017th career rebound, which surpassed Eva Voss' (2005-09) mark.
Crown made one final push to start the fourth and cut the Vikings' lead to five, 73-68.
Bethany quickly responded after a timeout, and a three-pointer by junior Ashley Schindele (Kimball, Minn.), gave the team a 12-point lead with under six minutes to play. That triple was Schindele's career-high sixth on the night.
Schindele went on to make three more treys in the game, dashing Crown's hopes of a comeback and setting a new single-game program record with nine made threes to shatter the previous mark of seven which previously occurred four times: Jade Pelzl vs. Minnesota-Morris on 1/26/13, Abby Olson at Northwestern on 12/5/18, Abby Olson vs. Martin Luther on 12/12/18, and Abby Olson vs. Carleton on 11/13/19.
Geistfeld tallied a game-high 36 points and 13 rebounds, and dished out five assists.
Schindele finished with a career-high 31 points, which included 9-14 three-pointers.
Freshman Haley Meyer (Centerville, S.D.) scored 12 points and had five assists.
Sophomore Ashanti Boykin (St. Paul, Minn.) recorded a career-high nine assists in the contest.
BLC set a new school record in field-goal percentage in the game by shooting 37-62 (59.7%) overall from the field. The Vikings also dominated the Storm on the glass, out-rebounding the Storm 44-23.
Bethany returns to action Saturday at 3 p.m. when it hosts Minnesota Morris in the final home game of the regular season.
