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In the end, the St. Ambrose University Queen Bees used a stingy defense that put the clamps on the high-scoring Raiders and beat SOU 77-58 to advance to the round of 16 against Morningside College, Friday in Sioux City, Iowa.   SOU ends its season 29-5, the second best record in school history.

In the game, St. Ambrose and SOU changed leads through most of the first half but the Bees surging ahead at halftime by a 35-28 score.  The first half was an indicator of things to come with both teams missing numerous free throws and neither team able to shoot the ball with much consistency. 

Yet, despite turnover problems, SOU was tied with the Bees 19-19 with 7:53 left in the half on a Jacki Speer lay-in with an assist from Chelsey Muri.  The Bees took the lead right after that and never gave it up throughout the remainder of the game.  With four minutes in the half the Raiders were still very much in the game as an Ashley Baker free throw made the score 24-21 St. Ambrose, but the Raiders never got closer than that.

In the second half St. Ambrose slowly built upon its lead as SOU could never close the gap to single digits despite a heroic effort to do so.

In the end, St. Ambrose relied on its two stars for their win.  Freshman Ali Dolphin and Sophomore Jenny Clark combined to score 51 points for the Bees and pulled down 20 rebounds.  SOU scored only 58 points.  Dolphin was dominate inside scoring 30 points on 12-24 shooting while Clark, the Midwest Conference Player of the Year, scored 21 points.  The Bees built the lead to 64-47 with seven minutes left as the Raiders couldn’t come back and eased to the win.

Senior Chelsey Muri ended her career at SOU on a night the Monroe, Wash. native would like to forget.  Muri, who averages 16.1 ppg, managed to score just seven, committed 10 turnovers, and was 1-5 at the free throw line and she fouled out.   

 Sophomore Jacki Speer, also had a tough night, only getting off four shots from the field and scoring just six points on the night.  Speer managed to pull down 13 rebounds but was plagued with foul trouble most of the night.

SOU was the NAIA 5^th highest scoring team in the nation.  Coach Lynn Kennedy went to his bench as the Raiders continued to pile up turnovers – 26 for the game.  Off the bench came Whitney Scott and Lindsey Scheffler to lend a hand but they too couldn’t find the hoop and combined shooting just 6 of 24. 

The Raiders shot 30% from the field, but were only 2 of 22 or 9% from three point range.   St. Ambrose shot 38% for the game.

St. Ambrose moves to 29-5 overall, the same record as SOU.  Little consolation to the Raiders, whose season ends as the second best in school history.    They wanted to play again, but St. Ambrose gets that honor. 

One bright note, the Raiders return 11 of 12 players for next season’s team.  Muri even returns as an assistance coach for Lynn Kennedy next year.   The Raiders gained a great deal of experience playing at the national tournament and hope to return again, but with a much happier ending to opening day.