University of St. Thomas Athletics
Wednesday, February 12
St. Paul, Minn.
7:00 p.m. CT
vs
North Dakota
Photo by: Abby Bondi
Tommies host North Dakota in midweek tilt
2/11/2025 10:50:00 AM | Women's Basketball
ST. PAUL, MINN. – There are only three more chances for fans to see the University of St. Thomas women's basketball at Schoenecker Arena. With the 2024-25 season winding down, the Tommies will kick off Early Spring Break by hosting the University of North Dakota in a midweek Wednesday tilt in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Wednesday evening's tipoff is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. in Schoenecker Arena in St. Paul, Minnesota. As aforementioned, the game will kick off Early Spring Break for the Tommie basketball teams. The first 250 fans in attendance at Wednesday's game will receive a FREE St. Thomas Hawaiian shirt, and the Tommies will partake in several beach themed activities throughout the night. Tickets are still available at www.tommiesports.com/tickets.
LAST TIME OUT: It might be too early to make this claim, but St. Thomas is on a roll. The Tommies won their second straight Summit League game on Saturday, dominating Denver in an 81-68 victory. It was St. Thomas fourth win in five tries and the team's second straight sweep over a Summit League opponent. Yes, last week, the Tommies earned the season sweep against both Omaha and the Pioneers, improving to 6-5 in conference play and moving to fourth in the league standings. Sammy Opichka put up huge numbers in Denver for the second straight game, as the senior led the team in scoring with 18 points on 6-8 shooting. Jade Hill also added 18, while Amber Scalia scored 17 thanks to a 12-14 mark from the charity stripe. Jo Langbehn led the team with nine rebounds.
TUNE IN: Women's basketball fans can watch the Tommies take on the Fighting Hawks on The Summit League Network on Midco Sports Plus through the Midco Sports Plus app. The subscription-based service will provide a digital streaming platform for regular season home St. Thomas basketball games along with exclusive Tommie and Summit League content. Starting September 3, fans can purchase the Midco Sports All In Package. This package gives fans access to the Summit League Network, CCHA TV and Tommie football games for the cost of $29.99 per month.
THE OPPOSITION: It was just two weeks ago when St. Thomas and North Dakota squared off in Betty Engelstad Arena. At that time, the Fighting Hawks were 3-4 in Summit League play after dropping back-to-back games to SDSU and NDSU and looking to course correct with a win over the Tommies. Though North Dakota showed fight in the fourth quarter, St. Thomas downed the Fighting Hawks 76-71, and they have not been able to recover. North Dakota's loss to the Tommies was the third of a five game losing skid, one the Fighting Hawks hope to stop this weekend. It's not necessarily one thing North Dakota is doing wrong. The Fighting Hawks outrebounded both South Dakota and SDSU in their last two games and scored over 70 points against St. Thomas and the Jackrabbits (once). They just haven't been able to do it all at the same time.
FIGHTING HAWK DOWN: North Dakota pushed the Tommies to their limits in that first meeting in Grand Forks. St. Thomas led by as many as 10 points in the first quarter, and it looked like the Tommies would fly away with an easy victory. St. Thomas never could put the Fighting Hawks to bed, which resulted in an extremely tense fourth quarter for Tommie fans. A 12-4 run to open the fourth quarter helped North Dakota pull within two, cutting the St. Thomas lead to 63-61 with 3:32 remaining in regulation. Clutch shooting by Langbehn and a last second steal from Phoebe Frentzel helped the Tommies secure the 76-71 victory.
STEALING VICTORIES: Few Tommies have had as big an impact off the bench as Frentzel. The senior has recorded at least one steal in eight consecutive games, leading St. Thomas to a 5-3 record in that stretch. She also recorded 2+ steals in three consecutive games from January 25 - February 1. Those games counted as the 15th, 16th and 17th multi-steal performances of her career. The Tommies are 10-7 all-time when Frentzel records at least two steals in a game.
MILESTONE WATCH: So far this season, Ruth Sinn won her 400th career game, Jade Hill broke the program record for career assists, and both Jo Langbehn and Amber Scalia joined the 1000 point club. What other milestone is there for the Tommies to achieve? Well, thanks to her nine rebound performance on Saturday, Jo Langbehn became the first St. Thomas student-athlete in the DI era to record 500 career rebounds with the Tommies. The senior is also the first women's basketball in the player DI era to score 1000 points and pull in 500 rebounds and she owns a career field goal percentage of .645 entering the game vs. North Dakota. Langbehn led DI in field goal percentage as a junior in 2023-24.
BYE WEEK BLUES: The bye week did not treat St. Thomas well earlier this season. The Tommies are 0-1 entering the bye and 0-1 coming out of the bye this season, losing to South Dakota and Oral Roberts January 9 and 16. Both games, though, were on the road, and St. Thomas was without senior forward Sammy Opichka, who missed two conference games due to injury in early January. Since returning to the starting line up on January 16, Opichka has led the Tommies to a 5-3 record in Summit League play, and the team is much more competitive with the senior in the starting line up. Even in three losses, the scoring margin with Opichka in the line up is just -17 compared to -38 when he's out of it.
SHOOT 'EM!: St. Thomas' offense was clicking in every sense of the word last week, as the Tommies put together one of their best shooting weekends of 2024-25. St. Thomas shot .536 from the floor in the last two games, converting 58 of 103 shots taken, including a 17-35 clip from three-point range. Simply put, the numbers have not been better in back to back games against DI opponents this season. The Tommies shot .536 in the weekend opener vs. Omaha before shooting a season best .596 in Denver on Saturday. That .596 shooting percentage is a DI era record for St. Thomas and marks the sixth time this season the Tommies, as a team, have converted over 50% of their shots in a game this year.
FOUR IN A ROW: After dropping the first three games to North Dakota, St. Thomas has won four straight and enters Wednesday's contest with a 4-3 all-time record against the Fighting Hawks. It maybe not necessarily a what, but a who that has led the Tommies to success vs. the Fighting Hawks. Though she only scored eight points in the last meeting between the two teams, Amber Scalia scored 15+ points in the previous three victories for St. Thomas, scoring 16 points off the bench as a first year back in 2023 before going off for 27 and 32 points respectively in two meetings last year. In the Tommies last loss to North Dakota back in 2023, Scalia, then a first year, was limited to zero points off the bench, and North Dakota went on to win by a final score of 70-56.
NOT YOUR USUAL SUBJECTS: Fun fact: Saturday's win over Denver marked the fourth consecutive game St. Thomas' leading scorers did NOT all score 10+ points in the same game. Yes, you read that correctly. Scalia, Jade Hill and Jo Langbehn have been the Tommies leading scorers since game one this season, consistently scoring 10+ points in the same game all season long. However, that has not been the case in St. Thomas' last four contests. The Tommies win vs. the Fighting Hawks broke a three-game streak where Scalia / Hill / Langbehn all scored over 10+ points. Scalia has scored 10+ in three consecutive games and Hill in all four contests during the streak, but if those three aren't scoring, who is? Sammy Opichka has scored in double-digits three times during the streak, including her impressive 18 point performance against the Pioneers on Saturday. Phoebe Frentzel and Alyssa Sand scored 13 and 10 respectively in the win over the Mavericks.
TOP-4 O AND D: St. Thomas early struggles on offense and defense were problematic in Summit League play. At one point, the Tommies ranked in the bottom third of the conference in both scoring offense and scoring defense, mustering just 64.6 points per game in their first five conference contests. Even worse? St. Thomas was surrendering an average of over 70.0 points per game to its Summit League foes, producing one of the worst offenses and defenses in the conference. However, since beating Denver on January 25, the Tommies have slowly but surely moved up the rankings in both statistical categories and now own a top-5 offense and defense in the conference. Entering Wednesday's game, St. Thomas ranks third in the Summit League in overall offense, averaging 71.2 points per game in conference play. The Tommies also rank fourth in defense with a 70.9 average. St. Thomas is one of three teams to rank top-4 in both categories. The other two? Now nationally ranked South Dakota State (1/1) and North Dakota State (4/2).
Wednesday evening's tipoff is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. in Schoenecker Arena in St. Paul, Minnesota. As aforementioned, the game will kick off Early Spring Break for the Tommie basketball teams. The first 250 fans in attendance at Wednesday's game will receive a FREE St. Thomas Hawaiian shirt, and the Tommies will partake in several beach themed activities throughout the night. Tickets are still available at www.tommiesports.com/tickets.
LAST TIME OUT: It might be too early to make this claim, but St. Thomas is on a roll. The Tommies won their second straight Summit League game on Saturday, dominating Denver in an 81-68 victory. It was St. Thomas fourth win in five tries and the team's second straight sweep over a Summit League opponent. Yes, last week, the Tommies earned the season sweep against both Omaha and the Pioneers, improving to 6-5 in conference play and moving to fourth in the league standings. Sammy Opichka put up huge numbers in Denver for the second straight game, as the senior led the team in scoring with 18 points on 6-8 shooting. Jade Hill also added 18, while Amber Scalia scored 17 thanks to a 12-14 mark from the charity stripe. Jo Langbehn led the team with nine rebounds.
TUNE IN: Women's basketball fans can watch the Tommies take on the Fighting Hawks on The Summit League Network on Midco Sports Plus through the Midco Sports Plus app. The subscription-based service will provide a digital streaming platform for regular season home St. Thomas basketball games along with exclusive Tommie and Summit League content. Starting September 3, fans can purchase the Midco Sports All In Package. This package gives fans access to the Summit League Network, CCHA TV and Tommie football games for the cost of $29.99 per month.
THE OPPOSITION: It was just two weeks ago when St. Thomas and North Dakota squared off in Betty Engelstad Arena. At that time, the Fighting Hawks were 3-4 in Summit League play after dropping back-to-back games to SDSU and NDSU and looking to course correct with a win over the Tommies. Though North Dakota showed fight in the fourth quarter, St. Thomas downed the Fighting Hawks 76-71, and they have not been able to recover. North Dakota's loss to the Tommies was the third of a five game losing skid, one the Fighting Hawks hope to stop this weekend. It's not necessarily one thing North Dakota is doing wrong. The Fighting Hawks outrebounded both South Dakota and SDSU in their last two games and scored over 70 points against St. Thomas and the Jackrabbits (once). They just haven't been able to do it all at the same time.
FIGHTING HAWK DOWN: North Dakota pushed the Tommies to their limits in that first meeting in Grand Forks. St. Thomas led by as many as 10 points in the first quarter, and it looked like the Tommies would fly away with an easy victory. St. Thomas never could put the Fighting Hawks to bed, which resulted in an extremely tense fourth quarter for Tommie fans. A 12-4 run to open the fourth quarter helped North Dakota pull within two, cutting the St. Thomas lead to 63-61 with 3:32 remaining in regulation. Clutch shooting by Langbehn and a last second steal from Phoebe Frentzel helped the Tommies secure the 76-71 victory.
STEALING VICTORIES: Few Tommies have had as big an impact off the bench as Frentzel. The senior has recorded at least one steal in eight consecutive games, leading St. Thomas to a 5-3 record in that stretch. She also recorded 2+ steals in three consecutive games from January 25 - February 1. Those games counted as the 15th, 16th and 17th multi-steal performances of her career. The Tommies are 10-7 all-time when Frentzel records at least two steals in a game.
MILESTONE WATCH: So far this season, Ruth Sinn won her 400th career game, Jade Hill broke the program record for career assists, and both Jo Langbehn and Amber Scalia joined the 1000 point club. What other milestone is there for the Tommies to achieve? Well, thanks to her nine rebound performance on Saturday, Jo Langbehn became the first St. Thomas student-athlete in the DI era to record 500 career rebounds with the Tommies. The senior is also the first women's basketball in the player DI era to score 1000 points and pull in 500 rebounds and she owns a career field goal percentage of .645 entering the game vs. North Dakota. Langbehn led DI in field goal percentage as a junior in 2023-24.
BYE WEEK BLUES: The bye week did not treat St. Thomas well earlier this season. The Tommies are 0-1 entering the bye and 0-1 coming out of the bye this season, losing to South Dakota and Oral Roberts January 9 and 16. Both games, though, were on the road, and St. Thomas was without senior forward Sammy Opichka, who missed two conference games due to injury in early January. Since returning to the starting line up on January 16, Opichka has led the Tommies to a 5-3 record in Summit League play, and the team is much more competitive with the senior in the starting line up. Even in three losses, the scoring margin with Opichka in the line up is just -17 compared to -38 when he's out of it.
SHOOT 'EM!: St. Thomas' offense was clicking in every sense of the word last week, as the Tommies put together one of their best shooting weekends of 2024-25. St. Thomas shot .536 from the floor in the last two games, converting 58 of 103 shots taken, including a 17-35 clip from three-point range. Simply put, the numbers have not been better in back to back games against DI opponents this season. The Tommies shot .536 in the weekend opener vs. Omaha before shooting a season best .596 in Denver on Saturday. That .596 shooting percentage is a DI era record for St. Thomas and marks the sixth time this season the Tommies, as a team, have converted over 50% of their shots in a game this year.
FOUR IN A ROW: After dropping the first three games to North Dakota, St. Thomas has won four straight and enters Wednesday's contest with a 4-3 all-time record against the Fighting Hawks. It maybe not necessarily a what, but a who that has led the Tommies to success vs. the Fighting Hawks. Though she only scored eight points in the last meeting between the two teams, Amber Scalia scored 15+ points in the previous three victories for St. Thomas, scoring 16 points off the bench as a first year back in 2023 before going off for 27 and 32 points respectively in two meetings last year. In the Tommies last loss to North Dakota back in 2023, Scalia, then a first year, was limited to zero points off the bench, and North Dakota went on to win by a final score of 70-56.
NOT YOUR USUAL SUBJECTS: Fun fact: Saturday's win over Denver marked the fourth consecutive game St. Thomas' leading scorers did NOT all score 10+ points in the same game. Yes, you read that correctly. Scalia, Jade Hill and Jo Langbehn have been the Tommies leading scorers since game one this season, consistently scoring 10+ points in the same game all season long. However, that has not been the case in St. Thomas' last four contests. The Tommies win vs. the Fighting Hawks broke a three-game streak where Scalia / Hill / Langbehn all scored over 10+ points. Scalia has scored 10+ in three consecutive games and Hill in all four contests during the streak, but if those three aren't scoring, who is? Sammy Opichka has scored in double-digits three times during the streak, including her impressive 18 point performance against the Pioneers on Saturday. Phoebe Frentzel and Alyssa Sand scored 13 and 10 respectively in the win over the Mavericks.
TOP-4 O AND D: St. Thomas early struggles on offense and defense were problematic in Summit League play. At one point, the Tommies ranked in the bottom third of the conference in both scoring offense and scoring defense, mustering just 64.6 points per game in their first five conference contests. Even worse? St. Thomas was surrendering an average of over 70.0 points per game to its Summit League foes, producing one of the worst offenses and defenses in the conference. However, since beating Denver on January 25, the Tommies have slowly but surely moved up the rankings in both statistical categories and now own a top-5 offense and defense in the conference. Entering Wednesday's game, St. Thomas ranks third in the Summit League in overall offense, averaging 71.2 points per game in conference play. The Tommies also rank fourth in defense with a 70.9 average. St. Thomas is one of three teams to rank top-4 in both categories. The other two? Now nationally ranked South Dakota State (1/1) and North Dakota State (4/2).
Players Mentioned
G
/ Women's Basketball
C
/ Women's Basketball
F
/ Women's Basketball
F
/ Women's Basketball
G
/ Women's BasketballJade Hill School of Education Feature
Thursday, February 27
Press Conference: Tommie Women's Basketball Postgame vs ORU 02/26/25
Thursday, February 27
Press Conference: Tommie Women's Basketball Summit League Tournament Preview
Monday, March 04
Press Conference: Tommie Women's Basketball vs NDSU
Friday, February 23
