VALLEY CITY, N.D. – The Minnesota Morris Cougars (2-8) were unable to overcome a hot shooting start from Valley City State (8-4) on Friday falling 66-52. The Cougars had four scorers with at least nine points on the night. Kendra Wycoff led the way with 13. Emily Auch had nine points and seven rebounds.
 
The Vikings started the game on a 10-2 run, opening the game 4-5 from the field. Morris cut the lead to five at 12-7 but the Vikings responded to push their lead to 11 at 18-7 after making four straight shots from the floor. UMM did not shy away and worked their way back into the game, pulling within six at 22-16 as the Vikings cooled off a little from the floor.
 
The lead for Valley City would get as large as 12 in the first half but Morris rallied and a Cori Becker three with 1:18 left in the half cut the lead to five at 34-29.

The Vikings started the half 8-11 from the field but the Morris defense stepped it up and held them to 7-18 the rest of the way helping them cut into the lead.
 
Auch led the way with six points in the first half. Tori Holt and Becker each added five.
 
In the opening six minutes of play in the second half the Cougars stayed with the Vikings, allowing them to only extend their halftime lead by two points, taking a 41-34 lead. However, Morris struggled to get much closer and they still trailed by eight with just over eight minutes left in the game.
 
With just over five minutes left in the half the Vikings held a 12 point lead and were poised to ice the game away. Minnesota Morris never cut the lead back to single digits as Valley City State went on to win 66-52.
 
The Cougars are now off until January 6 when they travel to take on Presentation in their first action of 2015.