EAU CLAIRE, Wisc. - The UW-Eau Claire women's basketball team defeated Division II St. Cloud State University tonight at Zorn Arena 86-78. The win improves UW-Eau Claire to 4-1 on the season and drops St. Cloud to 2-4. The win for the Blugolds make the all-time series versus St. Cloud at 7-2 in favor of the Huskies. Last season the Huskies beat the Blugolds 71-55 in St. Cloud.

The Blugolds got on the board first with a jumper from Hannah Mesick (Fr.-Chatfield, MN). Mesick went on to score on two free throws. Heidi Arciszewski (Jr.-Thorp, WI) then added a jumper and layup to make the score 8-0 for the Blugolds. Amanda Zenner (Sr.-Medford, WI) added two more free throws before St. Cloud got on the board with Krystal Scott's jumper. Michelle Burns (Sr.-Eau Claire, WI/North) and Mesick scored the next four points with free throws and a layup. Arciszewski added two free throws, and Zenner added two jumpers to make the score 20-8 for the Blugolds. St. Cloud got a big three from Anna Cashman at 10:28 mark. St. Cloud would not score again until 5:27 left in the half. During that time the Blugolds got a big three from Pam Kaye (Jr.-Milwaukee, WI/Brookfield Central), and Mesick added two jumpers. Heather Witt (Jr.-Kendall, WI/Royall) and Burns added jumpers too. This scoring run extended the Blugolds lead to 23. At the 4:55 mark, St. Cloud's Kayla Rengel added a three, but Rachel Mueggenborg (Sr.-West Salem, WI) had a three to answer. This extended the Blugold's lead to 22 points. St. Cloud's Rachel Booth had back-to-back jumpers to make the score 37-19 in favor for the Blugolds. St. Cloud finished out the half only scoring three points, but the Blugolds had two jumpers from Brittanni Hakanson (Jr.-Wheeler, WI/Boyceville) and Mueggenborg. Michelle Burns had a long three pointer to close the half with the Blugolds winning 44-22. The Blugolds had 15 points off turnovers.

Hannah Mesick again came out strong at the half with two jumpers to extend the Blugolds lead to 26. St. Cloud's Katie Tacheny had a three, but Michelle Burns answered with a jumper with 18:04 left in the half. St. Cloud then went on a run with two back-to-back three pointers, two free throws, and another three pointer to cut the Blugolds lead to 14. The Blugolds did not score in almost five minutes, but Mesick had two jumpers to put the Blugolds up by 15. Amanda Zenner had a layup with 11:42 left in the second half and make the score 56-39. St. Cloud had two free throws, but Heather Witt came back with a three. Katie Tacheny answered with a three of her own. Ashley Anderson (Jr.-Oakdale, MN/North St. Paul) came in and had a big fastbreak layup at the 10:42 mark. St. Cloud's Anna Cashman had a layup to make the score 63-50. Rachel Booth added two free throws, but Heidi Arciszewski followed with a fastbreak layup from Heather Witt. St. Cloud then added two jumpers to make the score 67-56. The Blugolds then shot six straight free throws, making five of them. Arciszewski then added a three-point play to make the score 75-58 with 4:06 left in the half. Cashman added a three for St. Cloud, and Kayla Rengel had a jumper to cut the lead to 13 at the 2:12 mark. The rest of the way was a lot of free throws for the Blugolds. Arciszewski and Burns shot six free throws and made them all. St. Cloud wouldn't go away. They got four points from free throws and Kayla Rengel had a three with 46 seconds left to cut the Blugolds lead to nine. Burns would then answer with a fastbreak layup to seal the win with 23 seconds left and put the Blugolds up by 13. St. Cloud did answer with two three pointers, but they ran out of time making the final score 86-78. St. Cloud did have 12 points off turnovers and 12 second chance points. Their bench scored 15 points to help St. Cloud out score Eau Claire 56-42.

The Blugolds shot 57% from the field, and 67% from long distance. They also shot 63% from the free throw line. St. Cloud shot 34% from the field, 28% from three point land, and 72% from the line. The Blugolds were outrebounded 45-42, and committed 17 turnovers. St. Cloud had 22 offensive rebounds in the game.

Kayla Rengel led all scorers with 22, and scored her 1000th career point in this game. Hannah Mesick and Heidi Arciszews