The Norse find themselves down to Robert Morris by two after two huge free throws made by Mya Meredith. With 15 seconds left on the clock, NKU calls a timeout to draw up a play.
Noelle Hubert passes the ball to Kylee Hunt, who gets a screen from Abby Wolterman. Hunt rolls to her right, giving the ball to Karina Bystry. With four to shoot, Bystry goes downhill and flips up a shot. “Clank,” the ball hits the back iron and misses.
Wolterman grabs the ball off the glass, and three Robert Morris defenders swarm her as she is not able to get up a shot. RMU players celebrate as they knock down the door, winning 60-58 over Northern Kentucky.
NKU had only two players in double figures, with Maddie Moody having 11 points, nine rebounds and two steals and Taysha Rushton having 14 points and four rebounds.
Rushton had a quiet first half, having zero with only two shot attempts. Her second-half surge helped the Norse come back down by 13 and take the lead.
Mya Meredith showed up down the stretch, getting to the line, making three free throws in a row to cut into the lead. She finished the game with seven points and led the Norse with a +10 +/-, also grabbing five rebounds and swiping the ball away twice.
NKU showed their depth as all ten players who played scored a basket. They also out-rebounded Robert Morris 42-32 and 16-8 on the offensive glass.
RMU was led by Myriam Traore, who started perfectly from the field, hitting her first four shots, three of those coming from behind the arc. She finished with 17 points, three rebounds, two steals and two blocks.
Right behind Traore was Aislin Malcolm, who finished the game with 13 points, five rebounds and a block.
The Norse started out the game a bit sluggish, only having nine points in the first quarter. Their next quarter, they had 12 points, but were down by nine going into the half. They shot 26% from the field and 18% from three, outscoring RMU 19-7.
NKU came alive in the third quarter as their defense led to offense holding RMU to 15% from the field and 0% from three, while NKU shot 41% from the field and 50% from three.
After that third quarter, the game became an out battle as there were six lead changes and 4 times tied the rest of the game. Even though NKU made more shots in the quarter, RMU shot more effectively to end the game, as they closed the game out on the defensive end, where they’ve thrived all season.
With how the game ended it was in the fate of NKU to execute the final play. Head Coach of the Norse, Jeff Hans, liked how the final play played out, even with the miss.
“We were trying to get Noelle [Hubert] off the flare screen a little bit, or when they switch trying to hit Mya [Meredith], and they did a good job of defending that. And then we had Karina on the weak side to get downhill. Probably need to take one more dribble and create a little bit more contact, try to get to the free-throw line. In that situation,” Hans said.
NKU’s defense stepped up huge in the fourth quarter, holding down RMU on offense and those stops shifted momentum in their favor on offense. Hans went to the locker room and talked to his team about how they need to guard how they’re supposed to.
“Not leaving certain players in certain situations, and just doing our base stuff like we’re supposed to. And I thought our hands were more active,” Hans said. “I thought we had way more deflections, you know, I don’t know how many steals we had that, but, you know, we got to steal right out of the gate.”