Nicole Dierking

The Lady Miners' shooting percentage in the opening half Thursday night looked like that of a team that had just come in from the snow and sleet outside the Bullman Multi-Purpose Building.

But after shooting a frigid 26.7 percent in the first 20 minutes, the Lady Miners shot 52 percent after the intermission and took control of a game it would win by a score of 78-66 over Saint Joseph's in the Great Lakes Valley Conference opener for both squads.

The slow start to the game allowed the Pumas to get a jump on the Lady Miners as the visitors led by as many as eight in the early going. A three-pointer by Michelle Bova -- whose last-second basket beat UMR when the teams met last season -- gave Saint Joseph's an 11-3 lead. The lead was still at seven with 9:29 left in the half before UMR started clawing its way back into the game.

An 8-0 run capped by two free throws by Josie Polk gave UMR its first lead at 20-19, but that lead turned out to be short lived as Saint Joseph's pulled back in front by as many as six before the half ended. A lay-up in traffic by Nicole Dierking near the end of the half that cut the lead down to four at 33-29 was a harbinger of things to come in the second half.

Dierking, who was UMR's only consistent scorer in the first half with 12 points, got some scoring help in the final 20 minutes from Tamara McCaskill and Jaime Forsberg. McCaskill had a rough opening half of play, but combined with Forsberg to score 10 points as the Lady Miners rattled off 12 straight points after the Pumas had gone up by seven. The Lady Miners never surrendered the lead once they got it in the second half.

Saint Joseph's was able to hang around for a while, but a three-pointer by Dierking and a jumper by Becca Kueny gave UMR its first double-digit lead of the night at 56-45 with 5:30 to go; the Pumas got no closer than seven from that point on.

Dierking finished with 25 points in the game, her third-highest scoring game of her career, while McCaskill added 14 and Forsberg 11. McCaskill also had nine rebounds and three blocked shots to pace UMR in those categories while Dierking ended up with eight boards. The Lady Miners held Saint Joseph's (0-5, 0-1 GLVC) to 38.3 percent shooting in the game and scored 32 of their 78 points at the free throw line.

UMR (4-1, 1-0 GLVC) will host Indianapolis (2-1, 0-0 GLVC) Saturday in a 1 p.m. contest at the Bullman Multi-Purpose Building. The Greyhounds had their game at Missouri-St. Louis Thursday postponed due to the winter weather in the St. Louis area.