Women’s basketball team uses a dominant second half to shut down Northern Iowa

By JON LEVANICH

With a 58-46 victory over Northern Iowa Wednesday afternoon, the NIU women’s basketball team ended a two-game skid.

“I thought it was a really good game,” said NIU head coach Carol Owens. “We stuck with our game plan that if we played defense and rebounded well that we would win the game.”

A strong second half led NIU to victory after a shaky first half.

NIU sophomore forward Mauvolyene Adams started a 6-0 run with the Huskies (3-4) down by two in the second half and led the team to a win.

“[Adams] coming off the bench was key,” Owens said. “We were a little stagnant early on, and she provided the spark that we needed.”

Adams finished the game with a team high 13 points and added seven rebounds. Center Ebony Ellis led the team with 12 boards, while guard Jessie Wilcox had nine points off the bench.

The Huskies dominated the glass, outrebounding UNI 52-36.

The NIU defense shut down the Panthers (2-4) in the second half, but faced a first half of a challenge.

The Panthers were 15-17 from the free-throw line, as NIU committed 12 fouls in the first half,

“They got [that many] free throws from us fouling,” Owens said. “I thought we did a good job of limiting them [in the second half].”

Fouls were an issue in the first half, but NIU’s perimeter defense was never an issue.

NIU held the Panthers to 22 percent shooting for the game, and 16.7 percent in the second half.

“They are a good perimeter shooting team,” Owens said. “We took that away from them.”