Jan 21, 2025
Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Martin Luther College’s Ava Stein, center, reacts after scoring and drawing a foul during the second half of Saturday’s Upper Midwest Athletic Conference women’s basketball game against UW-Superior at MLC. Also pictured left is MLC guard Anna Kieselhorst (23).
NEW ULM — The Martin Luther College Knights women’s basketball team stayed perfect at home and kept their conference record unblemished as a result of Saturday’s gritty win over the University of Wisconsin-Superior at MLC.
Cooling off offensively after the first quarter, the Knights found their shot again late and paired that with some key defensive stops to pull out a 60-52 win over the Yellowjackets in an Upper Midwest Athletic Conference game.
Mya Morris led the Knights with 22 points and five rebounds, while freshman Ava Stein picked things up for her team on the low post with 15 points, eight rebounds and three assists.
Emma Dorn has typically been the Knights’ go-to player in the post, but she had a tough night with her shot as she finished 2 for 11 from the floor for 7 points. Dorn did grab a team-high nine rebounds, but she needed help down low, especially when going up against the Yellowjackets’ 6-foot-3 Charlotte Ferstl.
While Stein is just an inch taller than Dorn and stands 5-foot-11, she added some extra muscle and post moves against Ferstl that the Knights badly needed.
“It was definitely a challenge, but I’ve been put up with girls like her before so I kind of knew what I was doing,” Stein said. “I just came in with confidence and just did what I needed to do, which was just muscle up against her and have good defense and it worked for the better. It’s just doing what I know that I can do.”
Ferstl countered with 15 points, nine rebounds and three blocks to lead the Yellowjackets, while Elise Besonen added 14 points.
Grace Kieselhorst added 7 points for the Knights but spent most of the fourth quarter in foul trouble, picking up her fourth foul with 9:49 left to play.
The Yellowjackets never led during the game but didn’t make things easy for the Knights either. The Knights shot 53.3% in the first quarter and led 20-16 after it but watched their offense slow down in the second quarter as the Yellowjackets matched it, giving the Knights a 30-26 halftime lead.
The teams continued to trade buckets in the third quarter before Morris hit back-to-back 3s in the final minute of the third to give MLC a 42-35 lead heading into the final frame.
After Elsa Olson scored in the paint with around seven minutes left to play to have UW-Superior down 43-39, the Knights needed an answer and got it in a surprising way. Moments later with the shot clock winding down and just Stein open from the 3-point line, the freshman forward put up just her 10th 3-point attempt of the season and buried it with 6:15 on the clock to give MLC a 7-point lead.
While she doesn’t shoot many 3s, Stein was confident to take the open look and confident her team would pull out the win regardless.
“It’s not just my 3s, it’s everyone just working together so I could get an open shot,” Stein said. “Just having that momentum that we had all game, I feel like even after that and before that, we knew we had this in the bag.”
After Besonen answered with a layup, it was someone else’s turn to make a big 3 for MLC and that someone was Anna Kieselhorst, who knocked down a 3 to put her team up 49-41. Katie Dobson answered with a 3 moments later before a bucket in the paint by Ferstl made it 49-46, but Morris took over for the Knights again offensively with a layup and 3 to put the Knights up 54-46.
After two quick layups by Olson in the final minute made it 54-50, Anna Kieselhorst showed up again for her Knights with a pair of free throws and a steal and pass to Morris, who was fouled and sank two bonus free throws to make it 58-50.
“The steal at the end, I think Lydia [Feidt] or Lauren [Paulsen] was guarding number 22 [Besonen], and they just led her perfectly to me,” Anna Kieselhorst said. “All I had to do was take a step in, swipe it, and we ended up with a steal off of that. It was great.”
Olson and Morris traded free throws after that for the final score.
MLC ended up shooting 35.2% to the UW-Superior’s 33.9%.
After an overtime win at home over Northwestern on Wednesday night, the Knights were ready to move on and prepare for the Yellowjackets. But with Saturday’s game being as close at it was, the Knights were determined not to have another long game.
“After Wednesday’s overtime, practice the next day we were like, ‘Yes, we beat them, now we’ve got to move on to the next one,’” Anna Kieselhorst said. “It definitely played a role in this game because we came out shooting and we weren’t out of this world hitting 3s or anything, but when it got close, we were like, ‘No, we’re not going overtime, we want to put this game away and make it a W.’”
The win moved MLC to 4-0 in the UMAC, 7-0 at home and 10-4 overall. The Yellowjackets fell to 7-8 overall and 3-1 in the UMAC.
Giving the Yellowjackets their first conference loss of the season gave the Knights sole possession of first place in the UMAC. While there are still many conference games ahead, the Knights are planning to keep up their hard work in the hunt for a conference title.
“The beginning of our last season was sort of rough, but towards the end of the season we started winning a couple more games and I think that kind of led into this season,” Anna Kieselhorst said. “[Minnesota] Morris was a really hard game, this game was and the one we just had previous [against Northwestern]. I think we’ve just got to keep working hard, working for our Lord and we’ll see what happens next.”
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