Purdue Fort Wayne
Northern Illinois
Mastodons Fall to Huskies, 77-55
1/30/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Jan. 30, 2007
Fort Wayne, IN - IPFW started off a three game homestretch with Northern Illinois Tuesday night at the Gates Center. The Huskies capitalized on a 14 point lead at half to defeat the Mastodons 77-55.
"There is something about home games that we just can't get mentally ready for," said Chris Paul. "They [Northern Illinois] are a good basketball team with solid senior leadership, and we are getting there, but we're just not at their level yet. We had good scouting and game plans for tonight but we just couldn't execute them."
Ashley Johnson started the game on the right foot for the 'Dons, taking a 2-0 lead. The Huskies answered back, running out to a seven point lead, 6-13 with 14:35 left in the half.
NIU hit their first double-digit lead at the 5:13 mark as they went up 31-21. Lieselot Malfait would answer back to cut the lead to eight. The Huskies would finish out the half with an 8-3 run, 41-27.
The Mastodons would start the second half with a 6-0 run, cutting the Huskies lead to eight. IPFW would continue to fight over the next three minutes before NIU would take another double digit lead, 52-40.
Northern Illinois would hold out a double-digit lead for remainder of the half. The Mastodons had a 22 point deficit in the end, 77-55.
"Our freshman class and senior Hilary O'Connell did everything we asked of them and played hard. We were up against a better team that had a fast start and once we got into the hole it was too deep for us to get out of."
IPFW was led by Johnson with 12 points. She was perfect at the line, 4-4 and hit 4-9 in the field.
Samantha Edwards connected for 10 points and five boards. Defensively she added two blocks and a steal.
Malfait led defensively with eight boards and three blocks. She had eight points and was 3 of 6 from the field. Hannah Thieke had eight points in 23 minutes off the bench.
Northern Illinois was led by Kristin Wiener with a double-double. She had 28 points and 12 boards. Stephanie Raymond also hit double-digits with 13 points.
The Mastodons (9-10) will host Texas-Pan American on Thursday night at 7 PM in the Gates Center. They will wrap up the three game homestand with Utah Valley State on Saturday at 1 PM in the Gates Center.
~Dons~
