Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Martin Luther College’s Emma Dorn backs down Augsburg defender Melanie Delestrez during the second half of Monday night’s women’s basketball game at MLC.

NEW ULM — It was far from the most polished shooting performance of the season for the Martin Luther College Knights on Monday night, but the Knights made up for it in the end with a dominant fourth-quarter effort.

Behind solid defense and some clutch shots from team veterans Lauren Paulsen and Emma Dorn, the Knights came back to defeat the Augsburg Auggies 56-50 in a nonconference women’s basketball game.

While the Knights struggled to find their shot in the first half, they weren’t alone. The Auggies outshot the Knights in the opening half, but just 29% to 26.5%.

However, the Knights improved little by little as the game went on and ended up finishing the game outshooting the Auggies 32.2% to 24.6%. The Knights also held the Auggies to just 2-of-16 shooting in the final quarter.

“Our shot percentage actually got better as the game went on,” Knights head coach Dan Gawrisch said. “We shot better every quarter. We had really good looks in the first half, we started off the first quarter and we missed a few easy layups and things like that.

“So, what I told them at halftime was, ‘Stay within yourself, keep trusting yourself and let’s cause a little more chaos defensively.’ So, when the timing was right, we put on the press and we brought more doubles inside to help slow number 14 [Amira LaDuke] down, she was on fire in the first half. When we took those things away, that really got us going offensively.”

Dorn, a fifth-year senior forward, was the first Knight to make a big shot as her 3-pointer with 3:54 left to play gave the Knights a 49-46 lead. It was her fourth 3-pointer of the game and the Knights never trailed again after that.

A free throw by Amira LaDuke, who led the Auggies with 19 points in the game but had just 3 in the second half, cut the Auggies’ deficit to 49-47.

Then it was Paulsen’s turn for a big shot. Paulsen, a senior guard who missed on four previous 3-point attempts in the game, banked in a straightaway 3 to increase the Knights’ lead to 52-47 with 3:21 left to play.

The Auggies got two more free throws from LaDuke, but Grace Kieselhorst answered with two of her own. Another Auggies free throw from Katie Manecke was followed by two from MLC’s Mya Morris with less than 10 seconds to play for the final score. Kieselhorst then stole an inbounds pass out of an Augsburg timeout to run out the clock.

Dorn finished the game with a game-high 21 points to go with eight rebounds, while Kieselhorst had 13 points and Ava Stein had 7 points and six rebounds.

“Coach, at halftime he just kept telling us, ‘Take the shot, be confident, find your feet and don’t be afraid to shoot,'” Dorn said. “He just told us to keep pounding it, our shots aren’t falling, but they are going to go in and that just kind of built some confidence in us. We did.

“We went out there and we took some shots, we put them in. We didn’t make all of them, but we made what we needed to. They were making a lot of free throws, we also had a lot of fouls in the first half, so we also made sure that when we came out in the second half to kind of stay off a little bit.”

Augsburg jumped out to a 6-0 lead, its largest of the night, before a Dorn 3 put the Knights on the board. Free throws by Kieselhorst and a layup by Paulsen put the Knights in front moments later and they held a 12-11 lead after the opening period.

A back-and-forth second quarter saw the Auggies on top at the half 28-23.

Dorn was quick to knot the game up in the second half with a layup and 3 in the opening minute. The Knights had a brief 33-31 lead in the third quarter after a 3 by Kieselhorst, but Augsburg ended the third up 42-40.

After a closely contested start to the fourth, the Knights got all the momentum they needed after Dorn and Paulsen’s big buckets late.

In addition to Dorn’s effort in the post, Gawrisch was also proud of Stein, who opened the fourth quarter by tying the game with a bucket in the paint.

“I’m really proud of Ava Stein, freshman post,” Gawrisch said. “She was looking to post up and taking it strong inside, that was huge for us. Emma, same thing, finishing inside and offensive rebound effort.”

The Knights improved to 6-2 to open the season, while the Auggies fell to 1-7.

MLC has an exhibition game on Thursday at Waldorf in Forest City, Iowa, before returning from Christmas break in a nonconference game at Hamline University on Dec. 31.