The women’s basketball team had no hangover from its last loss in Texas to Lamar University, as they won against the Bradley Braves Wednesday at home by a score of 76-52.

“I was really happy with the way [NIU] came out of the locker room, “ Head Coach Lisa Carlsen said. “I thought [NIU] looked really solid on the defensive end and that allowed us to get out to a comfortable lead early.”

NIU pounced on Bradley early on with an 16-0 lead coming out of the gate firing on all cylinders.

The Braves first basket of the game came in with just three minutes remaining in the first quarter. The Braves shot 32.3 percent for the game.

With a 10 point lead heading into the second quarter for the Huskies, Bradley made a small run courtesy of freshman forward Emily Marsh and sophomore forward Chelsea Brackmann.

Heading into halftime, NIU still had a substantial lead with a score of 35-22 behind junior guard Mikayla Voigt’s 13 points.

{{tncms-inline account=”TopShelf_NIU” html=”<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">It's time for Bradley to start guarding <a href="https://twitter.com/mikvoigt21?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@mikvoigt21</a>, she's got 12 points on 3-5 shooting. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/buckets?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#buckets</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/LOTP?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#LOTP</a></p>— Top Shelf Sports (@TopShelf_NIU) <a href="https://twitter.com/TopShelf_NIU/status/936033382877802499?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 30, 2017</a></blockquote>” id=”936033382877802499″ type=”twitter”}}

NIU did not let up in the third quarter with senior forward Kelly Smith and junior guard Courtney Woods chipping in with 12 and 14 points, respectively.

“The thing that Courtney does well is she has a nose for the basketball,” Carlsen said. “She just has really good basketball instincts.”

The Huskies were without freshman guard Gabby Nikitinaite, who is being labeled day-to-day with an undisclosed injury.

“[Gabby] is going to be OK,” Carlsen said. “[Gabby] isn’t 100 percent so we just felt like we didn’t want to put her in a position that would make things worse.”

NIU got contributions from its bench with redshirt junior guard Nicole Orr scoring five points as well as redshirt freshman guard Paulina Castro.

“Anytime you have people who essentially aren’t in uniform it’s going to open the door for other people,” Carlsen said. “I think that we’re still trying to find ourselves on what our rotation is going to look like.”

Going into the fourth quarter, NIU never gave the Braves a chance and sustained the lead for the whole game.

Voigt had a career-high with 22 points, shooting 50 percent from the field and the 3-point line.

“As a player, you just have to take what the defense gives you,” Voigt said. “I don’t really know the numbers, but I know I got to the free throw line a lot, and anytime you can do that you will normally have a good night.”

Sophomore guard Myia Starks also contributed on both sides of the floor, tallying eight points, eight rebounds and five assists.

“I know that I’m surrounded by so many scorers so if I go down the lane and get in the middle I can kick it out, and someone will knock it down,” Starks said.

{{tncms-inline account=”Raygooden_niu” html=”<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Congrats to <a href="https://twitter.com/GoHuskiesWBB?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@GoHuskiesWBB</a> and let’s go <a href="https://twitter.com/GoHuskiesMBB?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@GoHuskiesMBB</a>! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/GoHuskies?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#GoHuskies</a> <a href="https://t.co/nMtft5U0yB">pic.twitter.com/nMtft5U0yB</a></p>— Ray Gooden (@Raygooden_niu) <a href="https://twitter.com/Raygooden_niu/status/936068333631307776?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 30, 2017</a></blockquote>” id=”936068333631307776″ type=”twitter”}}

The Huskies will look to win their second game in a row as they will take on the Loyola Ramblers 11 a.m. Wednesday at the Convocation Center.