VALLEY CITY, N.D. (NewsDakota.com) – Valley City State played in their first game in over three weeks, but was unable to defeat Jamestown falling by a final score of 79-59. The Vikings played the Jimmies tough for most of the first half, but turnovers by VCSU and some made threes by UJ kept them at arms length.

VCSU had an opportunity to make it a one-possession game at the end of the first quarter, but turned it over. That would be the theme for the Vikings in the first half as they turned the ball over 15 times in the opening 20 minutes. About half-way through the second quarter, Jamestown’s lead was cut to just one, but a timely timeout by Jimmies’ head coach Thad Sankey gave them their mojo. They outscored VCSU 23-5 to finish out the half.

From there, the Vikings were able to clean things up and turned over the ball just twice in the third quarter, but they were unable to knock down shots and couldn’t bridge the sizable gap. Jamestown didn’t let up on defense in the second half switching from a full-court press to a half-court press that kept VCSU on their heels, giving UJ points in transition.

Junior guard Kia Tower led the way in scoring with 21 points shooting 8-16 from the floor and 3-8 from beyond the arc. Jamestown’s leading scorer going into the night, junior forward Hannah DeMars, scored 14 points and snagged a team-high six rebounds. For Valley City State, junior forward Taryn Dieterle and freshman guard Katie Johnson led the Vikings in scoring with 10 points.

The Vikings fall to 4-7 on the regular season and play an exhibition game tomorrow in Bismarck at 4:00 p.m. against the University of Mary before back-to-back home games on January 7th and 8th against Dakota State and Bellevue, respectfully. Jamestown improves to 11-4 on the year and have now won seven in a row. Their next hurdle will be against #10 Morningside at 2:00 p.m. on New Years Day.