“I thought our defense was outstanding throughout,” coach AnnMarie Gilbert said. “It was one of our defensive efforts. In putting two halves together, I would definitely rank this as our best effort.”
In an off-shooting game for both teams, the Eagles shot 29 percent and the Huskies shot 20 percent.
Cassie Schrock led the Eagles with a game-high 19 points to go with four assists and four steals.
Sydney Huntley scored 12 and Tavelyn James 11. Kristin Thomas had a team-high eight rebounds and three blocks.
NIU’s best player was Kim Davis, who was a walk-on at EMU before she returned home to Illinois.
Davis recorded a double-double with 11 points and 13 rebounds.
“We wanted to hold this team to 25 overall points,” Gilbert said. “Which is very tough to do to any basketball team but we held them to 32 so we were close. Northern didn’t play their best basketball. We caught them on a bad day.”
The Eagles defense did an excellent job defending the Huskies’ leading scorers Marke Freeman and Ebony Ellis. Coming into the game, Freeman was averaging 16.5 and Ellis was averaging 10.6, but the two could only score four total points combined.
“We played great defense and we stopped their main person number 23 (Marke Freeman) — she had zero points,” James said. “As long as we have played Northern Illinois they have never failed that easy.”
The Eagles started the game quickly after scoring the first seven points behind some tough, physical defense and never looked back.
The lead rose to 17 at the half off of a Tara Johnson free throw with a little over a minute to play.
With 3:56 left in the second half, the Eagles’ lead reached 35 and the Huskies had more turnovers (26) than points (25).
As a result of the Eagles forcing the issue offensively, they earned a lot of trips to the foul line and made them count by shooting 82.8 percent on 24-of-29 free throws for the game.
“We are playing for seeding (in the MAC tournament) right now,” Gilbert said. “We are playing to get a bye. The top four teams get a bye. This game will certainly help us. The next two are critical against Toledo and Central and then to finish strong at home versus Western.” NIU coach Kathi Bennett was unavailable for comment.
The Eagles will travel to Toledo University (20-6, 12-1) to face off against the No. 1 team in the MAC at 7 p.m. Wednesday.
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