Women’s basketball comes short of defeating Southern Oregon in final Cattle Classic match, 71-68
Senior forward Abby Heemstra pushes back against an opponent to score a basket (photo from previous game).
Photo credit: Josiah Seabaugh
By Kai Olbrich
The final Concordia women’s match of the 25th annual Cattle Classic lived up to the billing, finishing 71-68 in favor of Southern Oregon, and featured some impressive individual and collective performances.
After a furious final few minutes, the fifth-ranked Concordia University Women’s Basketball team came up just short of pulling off an incredible comeback against No. 10 Southern Oregon.
Graduate student Kendal Brigham was a key contributor to the Bulldog offense. As the game wore on the Bulldogs seemed to rely on her more and more. While she had been putting on a clinic in moving the ball quickly upcourt early on, she transitioned into the main scorer for the team when they needed her.
Brigham delivered seven points in the final seven minutes of action, with four coming in the last minute and a half. Brigham finished with a team-high 18 points and three steals.
Coach Drew Olson believes that Brigham leads by example and is able to step up in the big moments of a game.
“She’s [Brigham] huge,” said Olson, “She’s somebody that all of our players can look at and have confidence in and, still feel composed in those tough moments. She did. She stepped up really big and a lot of different possessions.”
The Bulldogs had the ball down two points with 10 seconds left. Brigham drove toward the basket but was confronted by multiple defenders. She then passed off to junior Megan Belt who went for the shot, but under heavy pressure from the Southern Oregon defense was unable to convert.
“It was just unfortunate that we didn’t have a time out at the end to kind of, like, settle us in,” said Olson, “But, I do think we got a decent look, Megan [Belt] went to make a play and, just didn’t go this day, but again, it’s a great game against a great team. And, I wish we would have come out on the other end, but we’ll learn from it.”
Southern Oregon came out hot in the first quarter, outscoring the Bulldogs by a margin of 24-13. Olson’s team didn’t back down from the challenge; they outscored the Raiders 23-13 in the second quarter to come within one point by halftime.
“The main thing that sticks out was just like that we competed,” Olson said. “We did a great job of responding. Southern Oregon’s a really good team. And they came out and played well, got a good lead. I think they were maybe up 12 or 13 or something like that. And for our team, we’re still learning and growing together. I thought we responded really well in that moment to battle back.”
The Bulldogs went to their bench as usual at times during the game but put the brunt of the minutes on the starters. Sophomore Raelyn Kelty scored 14 points for the Bulldogs and senior Abby Krieser scored 13 on top of her team-high three assists. Junior Kristin Vieselmeyer led the team in rebounds with nine.
“I think we’ll get even more like more confidence in our depth as the season goes on,” said Olson. “Like today, we knew we were up against a really good team and a team that presses. And so basically just said, all right, we’re going to we’re going to go with Kendal and AK [Krieser] for big minutes.”
Brigham was honored as part of the 2024 All-Cattle Classic Women’s team, which takes the five outstanding players from the tournament. Southern Oregon was honored with two winners, Sierra Scheppele and Emma Schmerbach.
The Bulldogs will be back in action on Monday, Nov. 4 as they take on NCAA Division I University of Northern Colorado in an exhibition game. The away game will tip off at 5:30 p.m. MT and 6:30 p.m. CT. Their next preseason game will be against another ranked opponent, No. 6 Dakota State University, in Madison, S.D. on Nov. 9 at 4 p.m.
