SIOUX FALLS — It wasn’t always pretty, but the South Dakota State women advanced to the semifinals of the Summit League Tournament on Saturday afternoon as they pulled away from Omaha in the fourth quarter and beat the Mavericks 66-53.

Top-seeded SDSU led 49-48 at the Denny Sanford PREMIER Center on Saturday afternoon with just over six minutes left in the game and the Jacks then got hot from beyond the arc. Junior guard Paige Meyer started a 9-0 run for the Jacks with a three and Ellie Colbeck and Madison Mathiowetz followed with 3-pointers of their own to make it 58-48 with 2:20 to play. That was enough of a cushion for the Jacks to pick up the win. 

Paige Meyer finished with 24 points, five rebounds and four assists. SDSU head coach Aaron Johnston said the Jacks would’ve been in big trouble if she didn’t bring her A-game on Saturday, but he was also impressed with Colbeck and Mathiowetz knocking down clutch shots as sophomores.

“Paige was special today and I’m not sure that we advance without the way she played. That’s how good she played. She was fantastic. Then late, Ellie and Maddy made some shots for us and really stepped up. And those are young players doing big things in tough situations. So I didn’t think they let it get away from them,” Johnston said.

SDSU got off to a good start as the Jacks led 16-7 six minutes into the game. The Jacks then led 16-12 at the end of the first quarter, but struggled in the second quarter. Omaha outscored SDSU 17-9 in the second and led 29-26 heading into halftime. SDSU was 3-of-13 from the field in the second quarter and Johnston said Omaha did a good job of making them uncomfortable on offense.

“They did a great job of doubling and being there immediately off of the catch and we never got really comfortable with that and then we all kind of sped up. … Our second quarter offensively was not good and that really hurt us. The rest of our quarters, whether they were great or not I don’t know, but they were competitive. We scored 17 [in the first] and 20 and 20 [in the third and fourth]. The second quarter was tough for us and got us really out of sync,” Johnston said.

The Jacks started the third quarter strong as they outscored the Mavericks 11-5 in the first four minutes and led 37-34. They extended the lead to 42-36 and led 46-41 heading into the fourth.

Paige Meyer knocked down a three to open the fourth, which was one of five triples from her on the day. But the Mavericks then went on a 7-0 run to close the gap to 49-48 before the Jacks pulled away in the final six minutes of the game.

SDSU shot 42.4% from the field and was 10-of-28 from three. The Mavericks packed their defense in the paint and that meant Summit League Player of the Year Brooklyn Meyer had a tough afternoon as she had just seven points and fouled out of the game.

Johnston said Omaha is a tough matchup because you never know what they are going to do on defense and they have enough solid players down low to make things tough.

“They do a good job of mixing up their defense. We just were never as comfortable as we’d like [to be]. … I think they are really talented. … They have depth inside with big’s that can matchup with Brooklyn physically. … They have a good plan defensively and made it really hard for us. So, when you have a good plan and talent, that’s a tough out,” Johnston said. 

Mathiowetz had 10 points and Colbeck finished with eight points. Mesa Byom and Tori Nelson each had six points. Byom had 12 rebounds and Nelson had eight.

Omaha shot 33.9% from the field and was 5-of-15 from beyond the arc. The Mavericks shot 25% from the field in the fourth quarter and senior Tori Nelson said the Jacks did a good job of playing straight up when contesting shots.

“I think we were really locked into our plan [in the fourth quarter]. We forced them into some tough shots and I think we did a good job making them shoot over us. That led to some offense too,” Nelson said.

Aaliyah Stanley led the Mavericks with 14 points. Grace Cave had 12 points and Polina Nikulochkina had eight points.

SDSU had 42 rebounds and Omaha had 24. The Jacks had 20 turnovers and the Mavs had 11. SDSU was 18-of-23 at the free throw line and Omaha was 8-of-13.

Nelson said that the 20 turnovers were a product of it being the first game of the tournament, but she thought the Jacks did a good job of settling down as the game entered the latter stages.

“I think there were some first game jitters there. It was the first game for some people in this tournament. So I think settling in, this first game was good to do that. Then I think our upperclassmen do a good job of trying to settle everyone down and move into the offense and as we moved through the game it got a lot better too,” Nelson said.

The Jacks will play  No. 4 seeded South Dakota on Monday at 12:30 p.m. You can watch Monday’s game on CBS Sports Network.