There is no practice situation that could put NIU’s women’s basketball team in the position they were in Sunday.

With 49 seconds left on the clock of the championship game of the Fifth Annual Fastbreak Fest, the Huskies were down 74-73 to Iowa, the sixth-ranked team in the nation (going into the tourney).

But at 73 points they stayed, as a turnover and three fouls by the Huskies handed the first-place trophy to the Hawkeyes in a 81-73 decision.

“It wasn’t a practice situation, it was a war,” said women’s coach Jane Albright. “We lost the battle but won the war.”

NIU, now 2-3, advanced to the finals after breaking the century mark with a 103-89 victory over North Carolina-Charlotte.

Iowa was promoted to the finals following its 82-75 win over California State-Long Beach.

Iowa jumped to a lead at the tip-off, which NIU was unable to overcome throughout the entire Sunday game.

The Hawkeyes pulled away to a 33-15 advantage with seven minutes left in the first half. But scoring by NIU sophomores Carol Owens and Tammy Hinchee and a technical foul called against Iowa sparked the Huskies to cut the deficit to 35-28, forcing an Iowa timeout with 2:49 left to play.

Iowa’s timeout was good for only one bucket for the Hawkeyes, as the Huskies came out strong from the break. Sophomores Lisa Foss and Tammy Hinchee and junior Gena Stubbs combined efforts to close the margin to 37-34 in Iowa’s favor at halftime.

“We were in the flow of it,” Foss said. “We felt it—we were going to win that game. I mean, this is the first time we stayed that close with a big team.”

Iowa coach C. Vivian Stringer said she felt her team was struggling the first half.

“They have been known to give top twenty teams fits,” Stringer said of NIU. “The first half was more or less wasted. We came out looking sharp, we substituted freely and thought we could change things around. I did hope that in the second half we could step up and get things done.”

And get things done it did when Iowa bumped its lead up to 42-34, two-and-a-half minutes into the second half. Iowa continued holding a six-or-eight point lead over NIU, until Foss and Owens helped move the Huskies to a 69-67 disadvantage, with 3:37 left in the game.

Hinchee fouled out of the game with 2:33 left to play and the Hawkeyes pulled ahead 74-69.

“We needed Tammy at the end of the game,” Albright said. “She’s a clutch player.”

NIU gave Iowa one last scare when Owens’ shot moved the Huskies to a 74-73 deficit with 55 seconds left. NIU called a timeout after Iowa’s next shot with 35 seconds on the clock and discussed the game plan to get Foss the ball for a three-point bucket.

A bad pass from Stubbs to Foss resulted in a turnover, and the Huskies would not score again.

“This is the first game we’ve been that close and had to use special situations,” Owens said. “We have to break the habit of taking time to warm-up after the tip-off. We have to get our momentum up before the game when we’re doing lay-ups, not after the game has started.”

Foss led NIU scorers with 26 points, followed by Owens’ 17. Michelle Edwards paced the Hawkeyes with 28 points.

In Saturday’s NIU game action, Foss scored a career-high 28, while Owens tied her career-high with 25 points.

The Huskies controlled the game from the tip-off and jumped to a 31-18 lead with eight minutes left in the first half. UNCC was unable to close the margin as NIU ended the first half with a 49-34 lead.

The Huskies used their inside game to advance to a second-half 20-point advantage, which was never overcome by the Lady 49ers.

“I hope to carry away (from the tournament) a great degree of confidence by coming within one point of beating a team ranked sixth in the nation,” Albright said. “We’ve got a team here folks.”