Guards provide spark in Huskies win

Lisa CarlsenHead Coach

By Eddie Garcia

DeKALB | The women’s basketball team (13-5, 6-1 Mid-American Conference) were impressive in its win as they did not allow a single lead change en route to an 89–76 win over the Miami University RedHawks (7-13, 1-5 MAC) Saturday at the Convocation Center.

“I think the way we came out of the locker room was really important today,” Head Coach Lisa Carlsen said. “We talked a lot in the last couple days about making sure we get off to a fast start, and I thought these guys did that. We came out with a high level of energy, high level of intensity and it kind of set the tone for the rest of the day and we knew that was going to be a key factor.”

The Huskies began the game firing on all cylinders as they were able to jump to an early 18-4 lead with four minutes remaining in the first quarter.

Redshirt senior forward Cassidy Glenn led the offense throughout thegame, scoring 17 first half points with seven rebounds and three steals.

Glenn finished the game with a career and season high in points and rebounds; finishing with 32 points and 13 rebounds surpassing her previous career and season high of 26 points set Dec. 20 against University of Missouri in Kansas City and 11 rebounds set against Western Illinois University earlier this season.

“I just kept trying to be aggressive until they stopped me,” Glenn said. “Coach just put a big emphasis on getting back to who we are with our running [and]crashing the boards and we’re going to have off nights. That is going to happen but [Coach Carlsen] says she’s never worried about us scoring the ball so we just put a big focus on getting back to what got us to where we are now.”

Sophomore guard Courtney Woods supplemented the offense with 21 points and 11 rebounds. This is her second double-double of her career and first of the 2016-17 season. Woods’ 11 rebounds also marks her season best which was seven, set twice this season on Dec. 16 against Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville and Dec. 31 against Eastern Michigan University.

Woods and Glenn finished with 53 points combined and recorded 24 of the 36 Huskie rebounds.

The Huskies shot near their season average of 37 percent from 3-point range going 9-for-24, 38 percent, from behind the arc after coming off of an 8-for-33 shooting performance from 3-point range in their Wednesday game against Akron University at the Convocation Center.

The Huskies jumped to a 20-point lead with less than five seconds remaining in the third quarter.

“They did a great job of ‘bend, don’t break,’ ” said Carlsen. “They were always going to make a run and come back at you and [were] able to cut into that lead a couple of different times. The good thing is we often had a response for that, and I think anytime you are playing in this league that is going to continue to happen.”

Sophomore guard Mikayla Voigt marked her career high in 3-point field goals, going 4-for-4 from behind the arc. Voigt finished with 16 points shooting an outstanding 71 percent from the field.

Kent State University

NIU hopes to keep its momentum going as it will attempt to defeat the Kent State University Golden Flashes for the second time this season 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Convocation Center.

The previous matchup was a back-and-forth battle with 17 lead changes and 14 ties.

Kent State was able to take a 12-point advantage in the third quarter but the Huskies fought back. With the help of a late fourth quarter run, the Huskies outscored the Golden Flashes 32-19 in the final 10 minutes of the game.

Freshman guard Janae Poisson left her fingerprint on the game as she registered her career-high 27 points off of the bench.

Since losing to NIU, Kent State has been on a three-game win streak, including a win against the Ohio University Bobcats, the MAC East Division leader. The Golden Flashes are scoring just above their season average of 69 points per game throughout the three game win streak with 70 points per game.

Kent State’s leading scorer senior guard Larissa Lurken, who dropped 31 points against the Huskies in their previous game, is averaging 23 points and seven rebounds per game going into Wednesday’s matchup.