The Cougars had a couple of key buckets late in overtime to hold off the Knights for an 80-75 win in both team’s first Upper Midwest Athletic Conference women’s basketball game of the season.

With the Knights’ leading scorer Mya Morris on her game and moments after knocking down her eighth 3 of the night, tying her previous school-record of 3s made in a game, went to ground with a right leg injury with less than four minutes to play. After being tended to by a trainer, she ended up leaving the game and icing her knee the remainder of the night on the bench.

Morris finished with a game-high 29 points and five steals.

If that wasn’t enough of a tribulation for the Knights to deal with, their second top scorer Wilhelmina Wenz fouled out with 1:04 left in regulation. After Knights post Ava Stein sank a pair of clutch free throws with 24 seconds left, leading the game to overtime, she also picked up her fifth and final foul a little more than two minutes into overtime, forcing the third Knights starter to sit the rest of the game.

Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Martin Luther College’s Mya Morris takes and hits a 3 during an Upper Midwest Athletic Conference women’s basketball game against the University of Minnesota Morris on Wednesday night at MLC.

Anna Kieselhorst, who just returned from injury and played in Monday’s home loss to Viterbo, had an improved game against UMM and finished with 13 points, five rebounds and four steals. She also ended up knocking down a big shot in overtime to put the Knights up 75-73 with 39 seconds left, but UMM’s Itzel Salazar buried a corner 3 to give the Cougars a 76-75 lead with 19 seconds to play.

After an MLC timeout, the Cougars forced a turnover on the inbounds pass that allowed Maddy Grove an easy layup for a 78-75 lead.

Ava Walz had a pair of bonus free throws with five seconds left, but she missed the first one and a lane violation was called on MLC for the second, forcing the Knights to foul Savanna Pelzer, who sank a pair of bonus free throws to put the game away.

“I’m really proud of how we fought,” MLC head coach Dan Gawrisch said. “I have a positive mindset. … We had some adversity throughout the game and our players kept battling and we were right in it and it came down to a play at the end, so that’s right where we want to be. [The University of Minnesota] Morris is a great team, they’re very well-coached. They were picked first preseason [in the UMAC] and I think if we start the first quarter the way we finish the last three, the game is ours.”

Wenz finished the game with 11 points and 12 rebounds, while Stein had 8 points and seven rebounds and Lydia Feidt had 6 points, 14 rebounds and six assists.

Gianna Klarenbeek, who transferred to UMM after playing two seasons at Bethany Lutheran College, finished with 26 points, nine rebounds and four steals to lead the Cougars. Claire Stark added 14 points and seven rebounds, while Grove had 12 points and five rebounds.

Down three starters late, Gawrisch said the other players on the court had a learning experience but couldn’t find the key shot they needed in the end.

“We just couldn’t buy a bucket when we needed it,” Gawrisch said. “Lyda Feidt’s an outstanding shooter, she had a number of shots in and out from the outside, Ava Walz, she can knock down those mid-rangers consistently, and she’s gonna keep looking for that, but they [the Cougars] are so long compared to us, and so I was really impressed with our spacing and ball movement.

“We consistently worked through the middle, across the lineup they have a height advantage on us, yet we outrebounded them. We won the turnover battle by far. It was a tightly called game and both teams struggled to adjust a little bit to the number of whistles, which was fine, but we have to do a better job of making sure our hands are staying off.”

UMM ended up making 16 of 29 shots from the foul line, while MLC was 17 of 27.

MLC finished with 45 rebounds to UMM’s 44 and forced 24 UMM turnovers to the Knights’ 13.

MLC had a rocky first quarter as the Cougars took a 7-0 run to end the quarter up 22-10. The Knights flipped things in the second quarter, however, outscoring the Cougars 25-13 there to have it tied at halftime at 35-all.

At the half, Morris had 14 points for the Knights and four 3s, while Klarenbeek led the Cougars with 16 points.

Both teams traded buckets and leads in the third, but a 3 from Wenz with less than a minute to go gave the Knights their largest lead of the game, 54-49. MLC ended up leading 55-52 after three.

UMM got another 7-0 run to open the fourth quarter and go up 59-54, forcing MLC to once again play catch-up. Morris drained a 3 to have the Knights down 59-58 and after a free throw by Grove, Morris drove the paint for a layup to tie the game at 60-all.

A jumper by Kieselhorst put the Knights up 62-60, but Klarenbeek answered with a 3 to give the Cougars the edge once again. The lead changed hands two more times after that before Morris hit her eighth 3 of the game with 4:07 to play, putting the Knights up 67-66.

After going down with her injury and getting her knee wrapped with ice, Morris carefully made her way back to the MLC bench for the remainder of the game, standing with her teammates during timeouts.

“That was the second time she tied her own record with eight 3-pointers in a game,” Gawrisch said. “She’s closing in on 1,000 points over her career, she’s a junior, she’s just a prolific scorer and she means so much to this team. Whether she’s on the court of off the court … you saw her standing, encouraging players constantly. She’s just a great leader for us and it’s one of the reasons she’s one of the captains on our team.

“It’s too early to tell for sure whether [the injury] is substantial or something, or we just need her to rest here for a few weeks and she’ll be back. Certainly we’re all praying that it’s something less substantial and she’ll be back.”

The Knights (7-7, 0-1) host Crown College at 1 p.m. Saturday. UMM (4-10, 1-0) host North Central next on Wednesday.