North Dakota State Women Look To Keep Pace in Summit, Travel to UMKC & Southern Utah

North Dakota State University (7-7, 5-1 Summit) is scheduled to play UMKC (7-9, 2-3 Summit) at 4 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 17, in Muncipal Auditorium (9,827) at Kansas City, Mo. ... The Bison have a three-game winning streak ... UMKC has won three of its last five games ... The Kangaroos are 5-2 at home this season ... NDSU is 1-3 on the road ... North Dakota State is scheduled to play Southern Utah (6-10, 2-3 Summit) at 8 p.m. (Central) Monday, Jan. 19, in The Centrum (5,300) at Cedar City, Utah ... SUU has lost three of its last four games ... The Thunderbirds are 6-2 at home this season ... SUU hosts No. 21-ranked South Dakota State on Saturday. The Series: This will be the third meeting between North Dakota State and UMKC ... The Bison lead the series 2-0 ... NDSU defeated the Kangaroos 80-62 on Jan. 19, 2008, in Fargo and won a shootout 94-81 in Kansas City on Feb. 18, 2008 ... This will be the third meeting with Southern Utah ... The Bison lead the series 2-0 ... NDSU defeated the Thunderbirds 63-50 on Jan. 21, 2008, in Fargo, and won 87-62 in Cedar City on Feb. 16, 2008. Bison On Radio: WDAY 970 AM of Fargo is the flagship station of the Bison Radio Network ... Stations on the Bison Radio Network for the basketball season include WDAY-AM 970 (Fargo), KQLX-FM 106.1 (Lisbon/select games), ESPN AM 710 /KFYR-AM 550 (Bismarck/select games) and KPOK-AM 1340 (Bowman) ... Scott Miller, WDAY 970 AM sports director, will call the play-by-play ... Miller hosts Bison Feedback featuring women's basketball coach Carolyn DeHoff and men's basketball coach Saul Phillips on Tuesdays throughout the season ... Game audio and Bison Feedback are free and available on www.GoBison.com. Bison Coaches Corner: Bison Coaches Corner featuring women's basketball coach Carolyn DeHoff and men's basketball coach Saul Phillips can be seen weekly during The Summit League season exclusively on www.GoBison.com ... The show feature games footage and analysis from both Phillips and DeHoff ... The NDSU men's basketball show will be posted Tuesday afternoons (once on Thursday, Feb. 19 due to team travel), while the Bison women's basketball show will be uploaded Wednesday afternoons (twice on Thursday due to travel) ... Bison Coaches Corner is hosted by NDSU director of athletic broadcasting/sales Jeremy Jorgenson and directed by Andrew Young, a freshman broadcast journalism major from Napoleon, N.D. Bison Basketball Flex Ticket Package: With the North Dakota State men's and women's basketball teams gearing up for The Summit League stretch run, the athletics department is offering the Bison Basketball Flex Ticket Package ... The women's flex pack allows fans to choose four of the six remaining home games for $30 ... With the men's flex pack, fans can choose to attend four of the six remaining home games for $40 ... The Bison Sports Arena ticket office is open between 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday ... For more information, contact the NDSU ticket office at 1-888-231-NDSU (6378) or visit www.GoBison.com. GoBison.Com Live Stats: Follow the games on the Internet at GoBison.com with live in-game statistics ... Click on the "Live Stats" link at the left side of the page ... Live video is available by subscription starting at $7.95 per month on www.GoBison.com or $19.95 per month for the league package on www.TheSummitLeague.org. NDSU-SDSU Games Jan. 23-24 To Be Televised: South Dakota State University Athletics and Sioux Falls-based KSFY Television have reached an agreement to broadcast both the Jackrabbit men's and women's basketball home games against Summit League rival North Dakota State ... The men's game will be played on Friday, Jan. 23, while the women's game is slated to be played the next night (Saturday, Jan. 24) ... Tipoff is set for 7:05 p.m. each night at Frost Arena, with live coverage beginning at 7 p.m. ... The broadcasts also will be carried on KXJB-TV (CBS, Channel 4, Fargo). Bison Fast Break: It's "The Few, The Proud, The Bison", as the North Dakota State women's basketball roster dropped to seven healthy players during the second half of Saturday's game ... Junior guard Nicole Vigil is likely out for the rest of the season with a knee injury suffered with 13:25 left in the second half against Western Illinois (1-10-09) ... Six-foot junior Megan Shea (Plymouth, Minn./Robbinsdale Armstrong H.S.) has received clearance to begin practicing full-go with the Bison ... Shea missed first 14 games due to complications from knee surgery ... NDSU has added 5-foot-8 freshman Tiffany Giese from Ortonville, Minn., and 6-foot-1 junior Kate Moser from Bismarck, N.D. to the roster ... Giese had been a volunteer on the practice squad ... Moser played in five games for the Bison in 2005-06 ... Sophomore forward Abby Plucker is out until February following a shoulder injury sustained at Denver ... North Dakota State was picked sixth in The Summit League preseason poll released in October ... The Bison four-game losing streak from Dec. 13 to Jan. 3 was the longest since an eight-game skid during the 2005-06 season ... NDSU had a season-high 52 rebounds at IPFW (1-5-09) including a season best 18 offensive rebounds ... North Dakota State is 7-2 when leading at halftime and holding opponents to 59 points-under, 6-2 when outrebounding opponents and 4-2 when committing fewer turnovers ... Whitney Trecker recorded a career best for the second straight game, exploding for 13 points against Western Illinois (1-10-09) ... Six-foot-2 senior Jerri Penley recorded a career-high 17 rebounds against IPFW (1-5-09) ... Penley has recorded double-figure rebounds in three games this season ... With four blocked shots against IUPUI (1-12-09), Penley is No. 3 all-time in blocked shots (162) at North Dakota State to move past Leah Klabo (158, 2002-05) ... With 15 points and 14 rebounds, Penley recorded the first "double-double" of the season and third of her career at Denver (12-15-08) ... Penley started the season 14 of 14 from the free throw line before missing her first against Oral Roberts (12-8-08) ... Penley made 19 straight free throws dating back to the second half of the UMKC (2-18-08) game ... Inger Hodgson came up with a career-high nine rebounds in the loss at Wyoming (12-13-08) ... Hodgson, who has a pair of 20-plus point scoring games this year, matched a career-high with five three-point field goals made at IPFW (1-5-09) ... Sophomore Abby Plucker had back-to-back career-high 20-point games against Georgetown (11-28-08) and Valley City State (11-21-08) ... Plucker is one of three players to score 20 points this season with Inger Hodgson and Katie Birkel netting 22 and 21, respectively, against Oral Roberts (12-8-08) ... Plucker scored in double-figures in the first eight games before hurting her shoulder at Denver (12-15-08) ... Plucker will miss a month with a shoulder injury ... Ashley Samuelson pulled down a career-high 10 rebounds at Denver (12-15-08) ... Samuelson, a 6-foot junior from Underwood, Minn., sat out 2006-07 due to NCAA transfer rules (transfer from Colorado State) and missed last year due to a knee injury in the preseason ... North Dakota State's Carolyn DeHoff recorded her first victory as a collegiate head coach on Nov. 21 against Valley City State ... At 17-11 in 2008, North Dakota State surpassed the previous year's win total of 14 ... Three of NDSU's six league losses in 2008 were by five points or less ... The Bison led at halftime in 21 of 28 games in 2008, winning 15 of those games ... North Dakota State is 1-3 in overtime games the past two seasons and 14-12 overall in OT ... The Bison double OT win over Oral Roberts tied the longest game in school history ... North Dakota State is 25-18 in opening games and have lost four in a row ... The Bison were 10-2 at home last season ... Lisa Bue, who was the 2008 Summit League Player of the Year, is playing professional basketball in Bosnia ... Bue's roommate is former NDSU post player Brandee Gibbs. Bison In The Summit League: North Dakota State is well represented in The Summit League statistics (league games only) released Jan. 12 ... Individually in the top 10, Inger Hodgson is 1st in field goal shooting (.559, 33-59) and three-point field goals made (3.2 avg.), and 3rd in scoring (15.8 ppg), steals (2.25 spg) and three-point shooting (.559, 19-34); Jerri Penley is 3rd in blocked shots (2 bpg) and 4th in rebounding (8.7 rpg); Katie Birkel is 2nd in assists (4.2 apg), 3rd in assist/turnover ratio (1.3 ratio) and 9th in free throw shooting (.857, 12-14), and Jill Zaruba is 1st in free throw shooting (.950, 19-20) and tied for 7th in blocked shots (0.8 bpg) ... Team-wise (top three), the Bison are tied for 1st in scoring defense (50.7 ppg), 1st in field goal shooting (.441, 131-297), field goal percentage defense (.301, 100-332) and three-point shooting (.368, 32-87); 2nd in scoring margin (+13.7 ppg) and rebound margin (+6 rpg), and tied for 3rd in blocked shots (4 bpg). Hodgson Earns Summit League Weekly Honor Dec. 9: North Dakota State guard Inger Hodgson was named The Summit League Women's Basketball Player of the Week for her performance Dec. 6-8 ... The announcement was made by the league office Dec. 9 ... Hodgson, a 5-foot-9 junior from Barneveld, Wis., had back-to-back career high scoring efforts of 19 and 22 points in leading North Dakota State to a pair of wins over Centenary College (87-40) and Oral Roberts (76-57) during the opening weekend of Summit League play ... For the weekend, Hodgson connected on 16 of 20 field goal attempts for 80 percent including a 9 of 13 effort from the three-point line for 69.2 percent ... She added nine rebounds, eight steals and six assists, and committed only three turnovers in averaging 32 minutes on the court ... Hodgson hit 7 of 8 field goal attempts including a career best 5 of 6 three-pointers against Centenary on Dec. 6 ... She also came up with a career-high five steals against the Ladies. North Dakota State Signs Five: North Dakota State University head women's basketball coach Carolyn DeHoff announced her first recruiting class on Nov. 12 ... It's a five-member class comprised of 6-foot-5 center Janae Burich (Roseville, Minn./Roseville H.S.), 5-10 guard Danielle DeGagne (Brandon, Manitoba/Crocus Plains Regional Secondary School), 6-2 center Paige Beck (Sioux Falls, S.D./Roosevelt H.S.), 5-11 guard Hannah Linz (Watkins, Minn./Eden Valley-Watkins H.S.), and 6-foot forward Rachelle Eckmann (St. James, Minn./St. James H.S.) -- who all signed national letters of intent to play basketball and continue their education at NDSU. The DeHoff File: Carolyn DeHoff (Arizona State, '91) is in her first year as head coach of the Bison ... DeHoff has a 7-7 record including 5-1 in The Summit League ... She recorded her first win against Valley City State on Nov. 21 ... DeHoff became the ninth head women's basketball coach in the program's 44-year history on April 11, 2008 ... DeHoff was the associate head coach in 2007-08 on Elaine Elliott's Utah staff ... The Utes finished 27-5 overall and won the Mountain West Conference regular season championship with a 16-0 record ... Utah lost in the first round of the 2008 NCAA tournament ... Her duties at Utah included coordinating recruiting efforts, point guard development, organization and planning of the schedule, coordination of academic affairs and directing summer camps ... During her stay in Salt Lake City, the Utes won 123 games, three regular season conference championships and one MWC tournament title ... Utah made three trips to the NCAA tournament including an Elite Eight berth in 2006 and a WNIT appearance in 2007. The Utes also had a pair of WNBA first round draft picks, along with second round pick in this year's draft ... Her 17-year coaching resume includes a five-year stop at Weber State. The Wildcats went from a sub-.500 program to a back-to-back NCAA tournament participant ... Weber State won consecutive Big Sky titles and posted back-to-back 20 win seasons ... Prior to Weber State, DeHoff was the top assistant at Wyoming for seven seasons and also was an assistant coach at Coronado High School in Scottsdale, Ariz ... A standout high school player at Cheyenne (Wyo.) East, DeHoff was a Street & Smith's All-America her senior year ... She played at Arizona State University from 1987-90, where she was a captain ... A native of Cheyenne, DeHoff graduated from Arizona State in 1991 with a bachelor's degree in exercise science and physical education ... She was inducted into her high school athletic hall of fame in September 2008. Division I Certification: North Dakota State received NCAA certification this summer for active status as a Division I member in all sports. NDSU reclassified from Division II beginning with an exploratory year in 2003-04, three seasons as a Division I independent from 2004-07 and one season in The Summit League without eligibility for the league tournament or NCAA playoffs.