CEDAR CITY, Utah-- North Dakota picked up its Big Sky Conference road win with a 68-53 victory over Southern Utah Thursday evening at Centrum Arena. UND tallied its first win away from the Betty Engelstad Sioux Center since Thanksgiving weekend.

Junior Lexi Klabo led all scorers with 21 points and added eight rebounds. Junior Faith Dooley set new career highs with 11 points and nine rebounds in the win.

"Tonight, we established ourselves in the first two quarters," UND head coach Travis Brewster said of his team's 18-point lead at halftime. "We had 16 field goals with 10 assists and that was big for us. Faith Dooley stepped up while Lexi Klabo and Jill Morton were solid again. This team continues to get better, that's important no matter how big or how small the gain."

The game got out to a slow start with SUU (3-21, 2-11 Big Sky) leading through the first two minutes, 2-0, but UND would score the next six points and quickly ran the lead to nine at 15-6 on Jill Morton's triple with just over three minutes to go.

UND would gain a 19-12 edge at the end of the first quarter before scoring the first eight in the second frame and going on a 17-3 spurt through that stanza to see the lead balloon to as many as 21. It was a comfortable 18-point advantage at halftime for North Dakota with the Fighting Hawks making half of their shots (16-of-32) while SUU mustered just half that many makes in the same number of shots (8-32).

The T'birds used full-court pressure to whittle the deficit down to a dozen in the third and made things interesting early in the fourth by getting within nine but a big Bailey Strand jumper followed by six straight Klabo points got the lead back in double figures and helped ice the game away.

"It's really exciting for the team to get its first road win since November," Brewster said. "The assistant coaches and platyers work so hard, I'm happy for them."

Morton added 13 points in the win while Chastity Franklin followed up her career-best 11-assist game here a season ago with a five-assist, four-point, four-rebound game.

UND (12-13, 5-9 Big Sky) continues its three-game road swing Saturday at Northern Arizona. Tip is slated for 6:00 p.m. Central.

Notes: Dooley set career bests in points (11), rebounds (9), blocks (3) and minutes (26) ... Klabo registered her 16th career 20-point game in the win ... She sits just 38 points shy of 1,000 career points ... North Dakota defeated Southern Utah for the fourth straight time ...  Southern Utah failed to make a three-pointer (0-for-11) ... Coach Brewster is 8-4 all-time in the state of Utah (Weber State: 5-1, Southern Utah: 2-3, Utah: 1-0).