Box Score GRAND FORKS, ND – The Comets had an exhibition game on Tuesday night as they headed north on a quick road trip to play the University of North Dakota Fighting Hawks at the Betty Engelstad Center. The Comets were up against their second strong Division I opponent this season and had quite the challenge ahead of them.

In the first quarter, The Fighting Hawks struck right away with two quick field goals, but it was answered quickly with a Karleigh Weber 3-pointer. UND then opened up with an 8-0 run to jump out by nine early in the contest. The Comets answered back a bit and kept the margin close, but still found themselves down by nine with a 21-12 score after the first quarter.  

The beginning of the second quarter was rather dry on the scoring side for both teams, MSU scored only three but held the Hawks to just seven points in the opening five minutes. UND started to hit their stride and stretched their lead to 15 at one point, but the veteran toughness of the Comets' Andi Gayner helped keep the Comets within range by hitting two 3's in the quarter and adding another bucket to get eight of her ten first-half points, Claire Blascziek joined in on the scoring stretch with a couple buckets of her own to help keep things within striking distance for MSU. But turnovers started to hurt the Comets in the first half as they collected 14 of them in the first 20 minutes. At the end of the half, the Comets were only down by twelve, 37-25, but the Comets had a tough time slowing down UND's tough combo of Lexi Klabo and Fallyn Freije, who combined for 20 of UND's 37 points. 

In the start of the second half, UND had a stretch of unanswered points fueled again by Klabo as UND went on a quick 12-4 run to jump out to a 20-point lead. The Comets hit their own stretch and caused a few turnovers, they were able to close the gap a bit with three straight 3-pointers, ending the quarter only down by 16, 58-44.

The 4th quarter began with a nice boost of offense for the Comets from Naomi Torgerson and Karleigh Weber, going on a quick 7-2 run to close the margin to eleven. But, the big presence of UND was hard to contain as they finished out the game on an extended run led by Klabo, she finished with a game-high 24 points for the Hawks. In the end, it was the Comets falling to the Fighting Hawks, 82-54.  

"I thought the kids played hard tonight, we showed some toughness in the second half," Coach Hutter expressed. "I was happy to see us shoot the ball well, this was a good game for us to play. It's always good to play bigger, stronger, better teams like UND."

Leading for the Comets was Andi Gayner with 18, including four 3's and six rebounds. Naomi Torgerson was next in line with seven points. Four other Comets finished with six each: Sydney Gangl, Cyan Hale, Claire Blascziek and Kylee Heurung. The Comets had a tough night on the boards with only 30 rebounds to UND's 47. 

Next up for the Comets will be this Sunday against Dakota State in Madison, SD when they return to NSAA action at 2:00 pm.