Ashley Eide picked the perfect time to step up for South Dakota State.
Eide scored seven of her 10 points in the final 5 1/2 minutes and the Jackrabbits beat South Dakota 56-53 on Tuesday to win the Summit League tournament for the fifth consecutive season.
Eide hit a go-ahead 3-pointer to give South Dakota State a 50-48 lead with 5:28 left. After Polly Harrington tied it with a layup for the Coyotes, Eide made two foul shots and Katie Lingle converted a layup to make it 54-50 with 2:47 to go.
Eide tacked on two more free throws to help South Dakota State hold on for its sixth consecutive victory this season and the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
''In order to win a championship, all of us had to gut it out and play our toughest, and I think we did that today,'' Lingle said.
Megan Waytashek had 11 points and seven rebounds for South Dakota State (25-7), which shot just 29.1 percent from the field. Gabrielle Boever led a strong defensive effort, finishing with seven steals.
''I thought she was great today,'' Jackrabbits coach Aaron Johnston said, praising Boever's performance.
Nicole Seekamp led South Dakota (17-15) with 20 points, and Tempestt Wilson had 10. The Coyotes shot 36.8 percent.
South Dakota had a chance to tie it late in the game, but Alexis Yackley missed a 3-pointer in the closing seconds.
''It was just kind of like a boxing match the whole entire night, and time just ran out on us,'' Yackley said.
Eide was 5 for 6 from the line, and Boever also had nine points and two assists.
''Everyone knows everybody's stuff,'' Eide said of the familiarity with the teams in the league. ''It comes down to who can do it better and who can gut it out.''
Sioux Falls Arena is the midway point between South Dakota State's campus in Brookings and South Dakota's home of Vermillion, but the Jackrabbits had much more support in the women's tournament record crowd of 6,153.
The last time the two teams met for a postseason title was in 2003, when the Jackrabbits topped the Coyotes 87-63 in the Division II North Central Regional in Brookings. South Dakota State went on to win the Division II championship 65-50 over Northern Kentucky.
South Dakota State improved to a perfect 15-0 in Summit League tournament play.
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