On a night when NIU’s Stephanie Raymond joined an elite group, Kent State spoiled her induction.

With her 14-point performance, the junior guard became the 22nd Huskie to reach the 1,000-point milestone. But her efforts weren’t enough for a victory.

KSU hit key free-throws down the stretch to spoil her milestone performance and defeat NIU 68-58 at the Convocation Center on Saturday.

This win was the Golden Flashes’ (15-7 overall, 8-3 MAC) sixth in their last eight games.

Coming into the game, Raymond needed 6 points to join the group of NIU scorers. And with 9:17 left in the first half, the junior buried a mid-range jumper to reach 1,000 points for her career.

But unfortunately for Raymond, the loss put a damper on her performance.

“You know, it’s a milestone,” Raymond said. “But I would have rather had the win today.”

Walking away with the win was KSU coach Bob Lindsay. The winningest coach in MAC history, Lindsay was proud of his team and was happy to escape DeKalb with a victory.

“I told the team this is probably as good a road win as we’ve had,” Lindsay said. “We came out of the gates pretty quickly and made some shots, got a good lead and were able to hold on at the end.”

The Golden Flashes caught fire early on, hitting 14 of 17 baskets in the first half to build a 38-28 lead at halftime.

NIU (9-13, 5-6) wasn’t about to go away, and it came out fighting in the second half. The Huskies went on a 7-0 run that cut the deficit to 38-35 with 16:27 left in the game.

Both teams continued to trade baskets for much of the second half and NIU couldn’t cut into the lead much more.

And down the stretch, Kent State went 6-6 from the free-throw line to close out the victory.

Coming into the game, Kent State forward Lindsay Shearer led the MAC not only in scoring, with an average 19.8 points per game, but also 20-point performances. The senior broke the 20-point mark 12 times in 21 games. She made it 13 after this weekend.

Shearer scored a team-high 22 points on 7-of-10 shooting to lead the Golden Flashes.

While Raymond got the attention, NIU forward Kristin Wiener tied her career-high with 24 points. Wiener also added seven rebounds.

After the game, NIU coach Carol Owens said she was disappointed by the loss.

“We didn’t play particularly well, especially in the first half,” Owens said. “We were lucky to be down 10. They’re a good scoring team and we had talked about the need for us to defend well, but it just seemed like we were a step late.”