UE women’s basketball drops last road contest at UNI
The Purple Aces outscored the Panthers at the free throw line
CEDAR FALLS, Iowa – The University of Evansville women’s basketball team had a close first half but fell behind in the second half in a 71-54 loss to the Northern Iowa Panthers.
For the third straight game sophomore forward Maggie Hartwig (Sauk City, Wis. / Sauk Prairie HS) led the Purple Aces on the floor with a double-double. Hartwig was UE’s most efficient scorer at 54.5% from field goal range while also grabbing 10 boards against Northern Iowa. Evansville had two other players score in double figures while the Panthers had five players with similar outings.
It took over a minute for either team to score on Thursday night as both turned over their first possessions of the game. But it was UNI who struck first with four points. Senior guard Júlia Palomo (La Seu d’Urgell, Spain) struck back with a second-chance jumper to get the Aces on the board. The Panthers had two brief four-point runs before UE had two made threes in a minute and a half to make it a four-point game. Northern Iowa had another short run, almost putting Evansville behind by double digits. But Palomo came through again, getting to the line for two free throws to keep the game at a seven-point deficit after a quarter.
The teams traded shots to begin the second quarter of action. The Panthers began to pull away with their longest run of the half, leading the Aces by 13. UE answered with eight points in just under a minute and a half thanks to back-to-back threes from Palomo and Hartwig. But Evansville couldn’t keep the offense going as UNI again made it a 13-point game. The Aces were able to get their deficit back into single digits with a five-point run in the final minute of the first half. UE headed into the locker room at the McLeod Center only down by eight with the score at 35-27.
It’d be a tough start to the second half for Evansville as the Panthers came out of the locker room on a 13-2 run. It’d be freshman guard Camryn Runner (Cicero, Ind. / Hamilton Heights HS) who broke the Aces scoring drought with four straight points. Runner and Hartwig were the only UE players who scored past the first minute of the third quarter as they each had six points. Evansville went into the final 10 minutes of the game trailing 61-41.
The Aces kept UNI scoreless for the first three and a half minutes of the fourth quarter. In that time UE added three points to its total, all of which came at the free throw line. The teams traded baskets through the middle of the quarter. Evansville had its final run of the game in the last two and a half minutes with six points. But the Aces would fall to the Panthers 71-54 on Thursday night.
A trio of UE players had double-digit performances as Hartwig had 17, Runner had 13, and Palomo was right behind her with 12. Palomo led the team with four steals while freshman guard Avery Kelley (Evansville, Ind. / Memorial HS) had a team-high five assists to match her career-high.
Evansville returns home for a game this weekend against the Indiana State Sycamores. The Aces will tip-off with their in-state rivals at 5 p.m. on Saturday, March 1.
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