Box Score

ROSEVILLE, Minn. - New Year's celebrations are a chance to mentally close the books on the past and look forward to a bright future. Such is the case with the Bethel women's basketball team. With their 53-51 win over the Northwestern Eagles this afternoon, the Royals will be able to ring in 2010 on a positive note after starting the season 0-6.

The Royals won despite having just one player score double-digit points and allowing a player from the opposition to account for more than half of its scoring.Jess Gilpin (Sr., St. Francis, Minn.) came off the bench to led Bethel with 11 points, thanks mostly to her three three-pointers, and the Royals were able to negate a 28-point, 10-rebound effort from Katie DeWitt on the other side of the ball.

As the score might suggest, neither team overpowered the other, but the Royals worked hard to take a nine-point lead with less than a minute to play in the first half. However, the Eagles bounced back to take a one point lead at 31-30 early in the second half. Bethel recaptured the lead and again went on to lead by as many as nine with less than three minutes remaining before Northwestern made the game too close for comfort in the final minute of play by reducing the Royal lead back down to two. Bethel was just 3-for-8 from the free throw line in the last minute and a half of play.

The Royals went without the services of Taylor Sheley (So., Backus, Minn.) for the second game in a row due to an illness. However, one of the more telling statistics of the game was Bethel's 30 bench points, compared to just six for Northwestern. The Royals also scored 15 points off of turnovers, which more than doubled Northwestern's seven.

Kelly Swenson (Fr., Dawson, Minn.) was Bethel's second leading scorer with nine points, but it was Shana Grejtak (Jr., Franklin, Minn.) who nearly posted a double-double with eight points and eight rebounds. She also added a block and three steals to her line in 32 minutes of play.

The win gives Bethel a 1-6 overall record heading into Saturday afternoon's game against Concordia-Moorhead, which is scheduled to start at 4 p.m. at the Robertson Center. Meanwhile, the Eagles drop to 5-6 overall on their season.