The game all tied up at 14 with two minutes left to go in the first quarter. The Norse are in a battle with Detroit Mercy. Taysha Rushton grabbed the offensive rebound and kicked it out to Karina Bystry. Bystry’s pump fakes the three and goes downhill.
She flips it back to Mia Jordan, who passes it quickly to Rushton, then passes it to Noelle Hubert and lastly finds Mya Meredith. Meredith, in the corner, doesn’t hesitate to shoot the ball, “Swish” as she hits nothing but net with the crowd going wild for her 1000 career points.
After this shot, the Norse were on fire the rest of their game, cruising to the 75-57 win. This moves their season to 6-11 overall and 3-3 in conference play, while Detroit moves to 4-10 on the season and 2-3 in conference play.
Once again, it was another standout performance from the freshman phenom Maddie Moddie, who posted up 19 points, seven rebounds, three steals and two assists. She was getting to her spots at will, hitting two three pointers and holding her own in the paint with seven made field goals down low.
On top of scoring her 1000 career points, Meredith had herself a night all over the floor as she had 14 points, eight rebounds and four assists. Bystry and Jamaya Thomas both finished with 11 points.
NKU also held the Titans’ top scorer, Makayla Jackson, to zero points on the day. The defensive effort NKU showcased was stellar as they forced Detroit to turnover the ball 22 times, having 12 steals and six blocks.
The first quarter was even to start the game, but a burst in the back half of the quarter pushed them ahead 22-16.
The second and third quarters were all NKU as they held the Titans to single-digit scoring. Their offense executed plays at a high rate, shooting the ball above 35% from the field across those two quarters. They capped the third quarter on a 14-0 run, having a 60-33 lead.
In the final quarter of the game, NKU rode the wave of their lead, only scoring 15 points, while Detroit had 24, but even with this discrepancy in points, NKU came out on top 75-57, picking up their third straight win.
Over the last two games, the Norse won, they committed 50 turnovers, a mark that head coach Jeff Hans wants to keep under 12. In this game, they only committed ten. Hans liked how they controlled the ball against a strong Titans team, which he believes is another step of confidence to show signs of growth.
“We didn’t do anything different. We made better decisions. Make better passes. I thought we cut more for our teammates to get open and help each other out when we were stuck, instead of just like going away from it and that allows us to get those shots and [I] keep talking to them about just we’re taking opportunities away from us to score when we know we have multiple, multiple people on the floor that can score in various ways, whether it’s threes or off rebounds or post feeds,” Hans said.
With the three that went down early in the game for Meredith, which got her to her 1000 career points, she feels like this was a huge milestone with what she has gone through in her career as a Norse and at Eastern Kentucky University.
“It means a lot to me, because the injuries that I dealt with for that over the past three years. [I] haven’t really been able to finish a year strong, so last year was my first year finishing a full year. So I’m just blessed to be able to get that,” Meredith said.