Early in Monday night’s game with NIU, Akron’s women’s basketball team played much unlike the 2-13 team that it is.

Shooting lights out, Akron maintained an eight-point lead with 13 minutes left in the first half.

Then, Akron wilted and the Huskies took advantage. In the end, the Huskies zapped the Zips 101-67 in front of 1,318 fans at Chick Evans Field House.

“(We) obviously looked like a team very much in rhythm,” NIU head coach Jane Albright-Dieterle said. “We’re getting used to each other. We had different people spark us at different times. It was very fun to score 100 points. We did it in a very unselfish way.”

The Huskies (6-5) had six players score in double figures, including forward Angela Lockett, who was the game’s leading scorer with 20 points.

“They (teammates) were getting it in (to me) and it was mostly, like, one-on-one,” Lockett said. “They were a lot smaller, so I was just putting the ball up. I knew I would either get fouled or hit.

“I felt very comfortable.”

NIU hit its comfort zone only after the Zips opened the game by hitting five of their first six shots en route to a 10-4 lead.

Akron took a 17-9 lead at 13:30 of the first half on a Dayna Felice jumper.

It would be the Zips crowning moment.

With the Zips up 18-17, NIU guard E.C. Hill stole the ball at halfcourt and raced in for two of her 16 points.

Shortly after, Hill hit a 17 footer, putting NIU up 21-18. After Akron tied the game at 21, the Huskies scored 12 unanswered points, mainly by going inside.

During the run, Lockett, Dianna Wingis and Cindy Conner were the recipients of feeds from the guards, which turned into layups or trips to the free-throw line.

“Our post did a tremendous job in scoring,” Albright-Dieterle said.

The game was finished by intermission, as the Huskies went in up 41-26.

“You’ve got a lot of young kids mixed with two seniors,” Zips’ head coach Lisa Fitch said of her team. “And they can believe for so long. Then, you get in an atmosphere like Northern has, you know, with the band playing. People are screaming. It’s pretty much hard to hear each other.

“They don’t have enough experience to play under that kind of pressure. They’ll go and get a 10-point lead and they don’t know how to keep it.”