Northern Kentucky and Bradley battled the whole fourth quarter, trading buckets back and forth. After Mya Meredith made a layup with 28 seconds left, the Norse are down by one, 62-61.
NKU went straight into the foul game, putting the Braves at the line to possibly ice the game away. Kaylen Nelson, 81% free throw shooter coming into the game who also missed two free throws earlier in the game, steps up to the line.
“Clank,” as the first one hits the back rim and misses, “Shoosh,” as the ball rims out, flinging into NKU’s hands, calling a timeout quickly.
After the timeout, NKU sets into their offense, getting the ball to Maddie Moody. She slips downhill, getting the shot up and missing. Abbey Wolterman cleans it up and can’t get a shot off as another timeout is called for NKU.
With five seconds left, NKU comes out of the huddle. The ball is under the basket, Taysha Rushton is throwing the ball. She struggles to find anyone, throwing it into Meredith, who gives it right back to Rushton for the baseline jumper, “Clank.” Missing the shot just off the side of the rim as the ball rolls out of bounds with 0.7 seconds left, going to Bradley.
With the failed attempt to win the game by the Norse, the Braves take home the 62-61 win. This ends NKU’s nonconference schedule and moves to conference play, sitting with a 3-11 record overall and 0-3 in conference play. Bradley moves to 8-4 on the season.
Moody was the standout of the game as she finished with a game-high 17 points. She also had four rebounds and two assists, while shooting 50% from the field.
Noelle Hubert also had a great night, scoring 11 points, stealing the ball four times and grabbing two rebounds. She shot 50% from the field and 50% from three.
Wolterman was a force on both ends of the floor for NKU with eight points and 11 rebounds. She had multiple big-time stops and plays to keep the Norse rolling in the game.
Out of those 11 rebounds, Wolterman had five offensive rebounds. Head Coach of the Norse, Jeff Hans, thinks she brings the presence that they need more of.
“She’s active. She might have had five, but she probably contributed to about three more, maybe four more of those for us, because of tips and being active on the boards and battling where some other ones need to do a better job of that, and that’s why Abby started today,” Hans said.
Bradley had an all-around scoring night with everyone who touched the floor scoring. Maya Foz was the leader in all of the points with 15 and Tamia Perryman had 14. Perryman also added four rebounds and three assists off the bench.
In the first quarter, it was a fight at the start with both teams trading baskets. Bradley shot 10 three-pointers, hitting four, while NKU made them work down low, shooting 50% from the field. NKU had the one-point lead with two minutes left off a Rushton three, but the Braves held their own on defense, not letting them score a point, and went on a 4-0 run to end the quarter, 20-16.
In the second quarter, Bradley scored first, pushing the game to six points, but a 9-0 run from the Norse, all started by Karina Bystry at the line, got them the edge back by three, 25-22. Once more, back-and-forth action and Moody layup ended the quarter, with the Norse retaining a three-point advantage into halftime, 35-32.
The third quarter is where the Norse came alive early, going on a 6-0 run with four of those points coming from Moody, giving them the nine-point edge, 41-32. The Braves didn’t back down from this deficit as they went on a 15-4 run with multiple made three pointers, tying it all up at 47. Another back-and-forth action to end the quarter with the Braves with a one-point lead, 52-51. In this quarter, Bradley shot 50% from three on eight attempts.
In the final quarter of the game, the back-and-forth play continued, with the final shot not falling for NKU with seconds on the clock as Bradley won 62-61.
With the shot missing and the play breaking down, Hans didn’t like how the final play went for his team.
“We’re trying to get either Mya on the shape up down low, or trying to get Abby on the back door. Pass got a little deflected, Mya lost control, hit Taysh, we still had a good look. I mean, she’s still wide open. It just didn’t make it,” Hans said.
Going into the holiday break, the team has three wins on the season. Hans believes the way they can flip the script starts with him.
“We gotta be better. I gotta do a better job. It’s a team thing. The coaches got to do a better job. Program. The players make some look in the mirror and make some decisions on how we want this to go from here on out, because, again, we’re right there in every game,” Hans said. “So it’s a couple of plays here, or there that we need to, we need to figure out and execute better on both ends, because it’s what we do in practice matters and we need to do a better job in practice of competing every play, pushing each other every play.”