ASHLAND, Wis. – The University of Minnesota Morris held an early lead on Northland College, but a quartet of LumberJills played essentially the whole game and led a comeback that ended with a 77-73 win. With the defeat, the Cougars fall to 10-14 (8-6 UMAC) on the season and will be the No. 4 seed in the UMAC Tournament next week.

The contest got off to a promising start as Minnesota Morris raced out to a 7-0 lead with five early points from Malory Anderson. The Cougars would go on to hold a nine-point edge, 17-8, before Miranda Wagner hit a late three to cut the Northland deficit to six through 10 minutes.

The Cougars continued to control the action early in the second quarter and a three-pointer from Tariq Brownotter gave Minnesota Morris its largest advantage of the game at 26-15. Northland battled back into it and pulled within a point late in the first half before an Anderson layup just ahead of the halftime buzzer gave the Cougars a 36-33 lead.

Midway through the third quarter, another Brownotter three-ball staked Minnesota Morris to a 46-40 lead, but the LumberJills responded with a 10-0 run to take its first lead of the day. Late in the quarter, Anderson once again beat the buzzer with a layup to take the contest to the fourth tied up at 56-56.

Northland converted the first two buckets of the fourth quarter and put Minnesota Morris into catch-up mode right from the start. Anderson hit her lone three-pointer of the game at the six-minute mark and pulled the Cougars within a point, but UMN Morris would never pull even. With fouls piling up on both sides, Northland scored its final nine points at the free-throw line to hold on despite heavy defensive pressure from Minnesota Morris down the stretch.

The game featured a great individual battle between Anderson (29 points and 13 rebounds) and Northland's Wagner (30 points and seven rebounds). Bailey Wynn also starred for the LumberJills with 20 points and 13 rebounds. No other player reached double-figures for the Cougars, though Brownotter had nine points and both Jay Kwateh and Jadyn Sondrol had eight.

Minnesota Morris will take the No. 4 seed into the UMAC semifinals and travel to face No. 1 seed University of Northwestern on Wednesday night at 7 p.m. in St. Paul. The other semifinal has No. 3 seed University of Wisconsin-Superior in Minneapolis to take on No. 2 seed North Central University.