The University of Indianapolis (U Indy) led by Heather Gonser with 31 points shut out University of Southern Indiana (USI) in the first round of the Great Lakes Valley Conference.
USI struggled throughout the game with pulling down important offensive and defensive rebounds.
“Anytime a team out rebounds us we are going to lose,” Senior Amie Newhart said.
A deep 3-pointer by Newhart with under a minute to go and a late 3-pointer with less than 15 seconds to go by Ellen Young helped push the Screaming Eagles within 6 points at the end of the first half.
Those 6 points would be the closest USI would come to U Indy. Over the second half of the game U Indy’s score ballooned to as much as 13 points. USI was never able to close the gap.
“We have to get stops and get them consistently,” Head coach Rick Stein said. “We were consistently playing that catch up game the second half.”
USI seemed a little out of character on both ends of the court. “We just didn’t play USI basketball out there,” Young said. “They killed us on the boards.”
The Greyhounds out rebounded USI 32-25 and picked up those ‘50/50’ rebounds that are vital to winning a game.
U Indy’s Gonser had an uncharacteristic game by scoring 31 points. Coming into the game she was only averaging 6 points a game.
“You have to have a player like to come in and step up big to win a road game,” Stein said.