Northern State was able to rebound from a slow start, but a lack of rebounding proved to be costly in a women’s basketball setback Thursday night.

The Wolves erased a 15-point deficit, and forced overtime, before dropping a 79-69 Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference contest to Mary at Wachs Arena.

“You can’t start out as soft as we did and get down by 14 or 15 against a good team and rely on being able to come back,” said Northern coach Paula Krueger. “I thought we showed a tremendous amount of toughness the second half and even part way through that second quarter. And then in overtime we were out of gas and when you put a team on the free-throw line 36 times, it’s going to be hard to win the game.”

Especially when Mary connected on 32 of those three-dozen attempts.

If there was one area that costs the Wolves as much as anything it was rebounding, where the hosts were outrebounded by 10 in the contest.

“I thought we were really lackadaisical on the box outs,” Krueger said, “and they went after the ball hard. … Our rebounding effort was really disappointing to all of us tonight.”

Northern received an offensive boost from reserve Carli Kuyper, who scored 13 points, nine coming on 3-pointers.

“I’ve just been getting more and more confident each game with shooting my 3s,” Kuyper said. “I get in the gym a lot and make sure that I’m keeping my work in and getting shots up.”

Kuyper said once the first shot falls, it helps to pave the way for more shooting success.

“You see the first one go in, and then you get a little confidence, you get a little fire, you keep shooting,” Kuyper said. “I think to be a shooter, you just have to shoot your way out of things, so if you miss one you have to shoot the next one and keep going.”

Krueger said all of the Wolves should possess the confidence to shoot from the perimeter because of time put in before the season started.

“Carly can definitely shoot. That’s probably one of her greatest strengths. Every game she’s getting better. They all are,” Krueger said. “The confidence to shoot the ball is a weird thing. Every single one of our players made 3,000 3’s before the season started to try to give them the confidence to know when they come in a game it’s OK to shoot those things, to fire them up.”

Northern continued to chip away at the lead and eventually caught the Marauders down the stretch, however, the Wolves never led one time during the contest.

“We just couldn’t ever lead,” said NSU senior Izzy Moore, “and I feel like once you lead it changes something in you.”

Moore did her part to help fuel the comeback. She finished with a team-leading 21 points, including a basket on a drive with six seconds left in regulation to force the overtime.

Taylor Tool added 11 points for the Wolves, Reagan Rus followed with nine, and Megan Counts contributed eight.

However, it was not quite enough to overcome the sluggish start.

“First of all we cant do what we did in the first quarter and get down by 15,” Moore said. “We have to be more tough than we were from the start, but being able to fight back and show what we can do, that was good of us.”

The Wolves, 15-12 overall and 10-11 in the NSIC, are tied for seventh in the overall standings. A top eight spot is needed to host an opening round playoff game next week. Northern plays at Minot State to close out the regular season on Saturday.

“I would imagine that we’ll have to win on Saturday to host,” Krueger said. “That would be my guess.”

The importance of that contest is not lost on the NSU players.

“We want to get a home game next Wednesday,” Moore said, “so have to get this dub at Minot.”

To see a complete box score, click on the following link:

https://nsuwolves.com/sports/womens-basketball/stats/2025-26/umary/boxscore/14152