With a tall starting front court consisting of Mickey Johnson and Jennifer Youngblood, the NIU women’s basketball team pounded the ball inside and dominated Central Michigan 72-55.

NIU outscored CMU 46-20 in the paint, thanks to Johnson’s 14 points and Youngblood’s team-high 16. Youngblood began the game hitting her first four shots in the first three minutes of play.

“Before the game, coach said that we wanted to look inside as much as possible,” said Youngblood. “I think it was just a matter of my teammates getting the ball into me at the right time.”

The Huskies (9-11 overall, 5-2 Mid-American Conference) began the game on a 10-2 run and never looked back.

NIU coach Carol Hammerle believed going inside would be the key to the game.

“We felt that in scouting Central in that the way they defend, and their post players, I didn’t feel that they could stop us,” Hammerle said. “We really focused on going inside.”

Despite winning the game, NIU struggled with handling CMU’s full court press, committing 24 turnovers.

Central Michigan dropped only 14 turnovers but was only able to score 22 points off the Huskie mistakes.

“With the press, it’s tough having such a young ball club,” Hammerle said. “We just need to get a little more sophisticated and smart about when to attack and when not to.”

To make up for the turnovers, NIU shot the ball at 63 percent for the game and 70 percent in the second half.

Leading the way for the Huskies was Youngblood’s 7-of-8 shooting and Johnson’s 6-of-8 shooting, who reached a milestone 17 NIU women basketball players share, scoring her 1,000th career-point.

Kristan Knake also tied Youngblood’s team-high 16 points on 6-of-10 shooting from the floor and added a career-high 12 assists.

Kim Boeding shot 4-of-6 from the floor for 11 points to round out the four Huskies who scored in double figures.

The defense allowed CMU 55 points and 30 percent shooting from the field, but Hammerle thought the defense allowed CMU back into the game.

“I didn’t feel we did a very good job of handling ball screens,” Hammerle said. “Credit Central because I think they really did a nice job of trying to take what our defense was going to give them.”

Despite the poor shooting, CMU cut the lead to 4 points early in the second half. The Huskies then went on a 13-2 run to seal the game.