MARSHALL, Minn. - Senior Alison Nash-Gerlach scored a season high 24 points Saturday afternoon as she led the Minnesota State University Moorhead Dragons basketball team to a 76-55 victory over Truman State (Mo.) at the State Farm SMSU Classic.

The Dragons open the 2009-10 season with a 3-0 record as the team handed Truman State their first loss of the year. Truman State had topped Southwest Minnesota State on Friday evening after MSUM beat No. 23 Hillsdale earlier in the afternoon, and with the win the Dragons took the Classic title.

Nash-Gerlach scored the same amount of points that she had combined in the first two games moving her season total to 48. Meghan Rettke was the only other Dragon in double figures with 12 points and shared the team lead of rebounds with Nash-Gerlach as they both grabbed seven.

Brittany Maclin, Betsy Dickson and Marisa Yernatich each had nine points and combined for 11 boards. Dickson led the team's guards with six rebounds.

After scoring the first three points of the game, the Bulldogs were able to keep with the Dragons for the first five minutes before MSUM tied the game at nine at 14:08 in the first half. After taking the lead for good on a three pointer by Kaycee Charette at 11:47, the Dragons started to build distance when they went up by eight on a Yernatich three at 8:35.

The Dragons increased their lead to as much as 15 in the first half, leading by 10 at half, 35-25. MSUM steadily built their lead as Nash-Gerlach scored 17 of the team's 41 second half point to take their third win of the season.

MSUM forced TSU to have 17 turnovers in the game and also picked up seven more boards as a team, with 37. All eleven Dragons played at least three minutes in the contest with eight making buckets and nine grabbing a rebound.

The Dragons will host Concordia (Moorhead, Minn.) in a non-conference game on Tues., Nov. 24 at 6 p.m. in a doubleheader for MSUM basketball. The men's team will also host the Cobbers at 8 p.m.