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Washburn softball to open MIAA play with home twinbills Friday and Saturday
By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
Washburn men set to host NCAA Central Regional for second straight season
By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
The 31-1 Ichabods are the No. 1 regional seed and coming off a dominating 91-59 win over Rogers State in Sunday's MIAA Tournament final in Kansas City, Mo.
MIAA Tournament MVP Jack Bachelor hoists the championship trophy Sunday after Washburn's 91-59 win over Rogers State. [Photo courtesy of Washburn Athletics]
Washburn coach Brett Ballard cuts down the nets after the Ichabods' MIAA Tournament championship Sunday in Kansas City, Mo. [Photo by Rick Peterson/TSN] Minnesota-Duluth, winners of the Northern Sun Tournament, is 21-11 this season and enters the NCAA Tournament on an eight-game winning streak.
The Bulldogs were the No. 6 seed in the Northern Sun Tournament, winning the title with a 76-65 win over top-seeded St. Cloud State.
Washburn rolled through the MIAA Tournament, outscoring their opponents 267-180, including an MIAA championship game record for margin of victory record in its 32-point win over Rogers State.
The Ichabods never trailed in any of their MIAA Tournament games.
The Ichabods are making their 18th NCAA appearance and enter the tournament with a 20-17 overall record in the event. Washburn reached the 2025 NCAA Division II Final Four.
Washburn won its first MIAA Tournament championship since 2021 and its first in Kansas City since 2012.
The Ichabods have recorded their third 30-win season program history and their second straight after last season's 30-4 record.
Washburn has won 29 straight games at home, breaking the previous 28-game streak from Nov. 19, 1993 to Feb. 8, 1995.
Washburn is first in NCAA Division II in scoring margin at plus 25.1 points per game and are ranked fourth in field goal percentage at 50.9 percent.
Sophomore All-MIAA first-team pick Dillon Claussen, who has missed the Ichabods' last two games with a leg injury, is eighth in the nation in field goal percentage at 62.5 percent. Claussen is questionable for Saturday.
Junior first-team All-MIAA pick and MIAA Tournament MVP Jack Bachelor is 21st in the nation in total assists with 149 and seventh in assist to turnover ratio at 3.10 to 1. Bachelor is 10th in 3-pointers made with 95 and 19th in 3-pointers per game with 2.97.
Senior Brady Christiansen joined Bachelor and Jones on the all-tournament team after averaging 14.3 points 10 rebounds in the tournament and hitting 50 percent of his 3-point shots, going 7 of 14 overall from deep.
Jennies end Ichabods' women's season with 64-55 decision in NCAA Central Regional
By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
MANKATO, Minn. -- No. 5 seed Washburn University women's basketball saw its season come to an end Friday night in the quarterfinal round of the NCAA Central Region tournament with a 64-55 loss to No. 4 seed Central Missouri.
Senior Yibari Nwidadah ended her Washburn career with a team-high 14 points in Friday's 64-55 NCAA Central Regional loss to Central Missouri in Mankato, Minn. [Photo courtesy of Washburn Athletics]
The Ichabods ended the season 24-8 record with an MIAA Tournament Championship.
"It's hard to swallow right now because I know how much our team and our players wanted (a win), but I think the standard has been re-set in our program and a couple of weeks and we'll get started to be back here again,'' Washburn coach Lora Westling said in her post-game press conference.
"That's what makes it difficult right now is that you have this tough game, but getting that 20-win season again and getting back into a championship scenario and getting back into the regional tournament for the first time in 13 years, geez we have so much to be proud of and so much to be grateful for. I think that speaks for itself.''
Washburn opened the game with a hot start, leading 6-3 after the second bucket of the game for senior Yibari Nwidadah in the first four minutes.
The Jennies (26-6) would come back to tie the game at eight to start what would turn into a 11-2 run to end the first quarter with UCM leading 16-10.
Nwidadah opened the second quarter with an old-fashioned three-point play that cut the Jennies' lead in half, but the next 11 points came from Central Missouri as the lead reached 14 points at the 4:48 mark in the quarter.
A quick five-point burst from Kellyn Hunter inside the final three minutes helped bring the Central Missouri lead back down to single digits, sending the Ichabods to halftime trailing 29-22.
Both sides traded baskets out of the break with the deficit staying between seven and 11 points until a 4-0 burst by the Jennies pushed the lead back up to 13.
Washburn senior Payton Sterk drained 3-pointers on back-to-back trips down the court, cutting the WU deficit back down to seven points with 4:07 left in the quarter.
A steal and a score from Hunter brought Washburn within five, but that was answered by five straight for Central Missouri as it went into the fourth leading 50-41.
The fourth quarter started like the third with alternating baskets on each side.
Washburn shot it efficiently, going 6-14 in the quarter, but could not connect from deep going 0-7 from 3-point range in the comeback attempt.
Madelyn Amekporfor got a layup to go inside of two minutes that made it an eight-point game for the first time all quarter, but that was as close as the Ichabods would get as the Jennies held on to post the nine-point win.
