SIOUX CITY, IA – Jamestown Jimmies Women’s Basketball kept fighting against the team regarded as the NAIA’s best on Thursday, but a team that hasn’t lost since December showed why it is so good.

Top-ranked Marian University defeated Jamestown 72-63 in the Round of 16 of the NAIA Women’s Basketball Championship at the Tyson Events Center.

Marian’s athletic and quick post players spurred the Knights.  Kinnidy Garrard scored 17 points with eight rebounds and two blocks.  Abbey McNally had 16 points, 14 rebounds, three blocks and an assist.  Allison Bosse hit three three-pointers and scored 10 points.  Two-time WBCA National Player of the Year Ella Collier scored nine for Marian (33-1).

Kate Cordes scored 24 points to pace Jamestown (19-13), with two three-pointers, three rebounds, an assist and a steal.  Kia Tower scored 13 and hit two three-pointers.  Audrey Rodakowski scored eight points.

Cordes scores seven first-quarter points for the Jimmies, but Garrard and Collier notched six each for Marian as the Knights led 16-9 through 10 minutes.

Tower, playing her 151st and final game for Jamestown, had nine in the second quarter, and her three-pointer in the last seconds of the half cut what was a 14-point Marian lead to 37-29 at halftime.

Marian then stretched the lead to as much as 17 in the third quarter behind McNally, who scored 10 in that period.  The Knights led 59-45 after three.

Jamestown came back to within 63-56 after an 18-4 run in the first 4:41 of the fourth quarter.  But an offensive foul fouled Rodakowski out of her last Jimmie game with 4:41 left.  Twice more, UJ came to within seven, but no closer.

Marian extended its winning streak to 31 games and advanced to the quarterfinals for the third straight year.

Jamestown sees two accomplished seniors graduate.

Tower, who took advantage of the extra year available due to the COVID-19 pandemic, leaves as UJ Women’s Basketball’s all-time leading scorer with 1,834 points.  She also became the fifth Jimmie women’s player to have at least 200 career steals.  Tower started 127 games for Jamestown, including the last 120 consecutively.

Rodakowski’s steady development culminated in a senior season where she climbed 30 spots to 21st on the program’s all-time scoring list and leaves UJ with 1,034 points, the 25th Jimmie to score at least 1,000.