CEDAR FALLS, Iowa - Senior Lizzie Boeck and junior Katelin Oney combined for 51 points to lead Northern Iowa to a 78-54 win over North Dakota in non-conference women's basketball action at the McLeod Center.
With 21 points in the second half, Boeck propelled UNI (7-3) to an eventual 24-point win over UND (1-7) and gave the Panthers their fourth consecutive win. Boeck also finished with a team high nine rebounds.
"They have some talented perimeter players," said UND head coach Gene Roebuck. "I thought we did a decent job around the perimeter, but we let their post player, Lizzie, score 30 points. We were basically giving her looks inside, but when you throw sophomores on a senior, you're going to get beat up a little bit. We need to get smarter and work harder at it, but all-in-all I thought we battle for 40 minutes and didn't let down."
Nailing six of UNI's total nine three pointers, Oney tallied 18 of her eventual 21 points from beyond the arc and Jacqui Kalin added another 11 points.
The Fighting Sioux were led by senior co-captain Mallory Youngblut who finished with 13 points and seven rebounds. The Davenport, Iowa, native struggled from the field, but went 4-for-4 at the free throw line for her second straight game in double figures.
Off of the bench, freshman Megan Lauck (F, Arden Hills, Minn.) scored eight points and both freshman Allyssa Wall (North Sioux City, S.D.) and junior Charnay Mothershed (G, Phoenix, Ariz.) finished with seven points apiece. Mothershed added seven rebounds and a team high two steals.
"Charnay played a great game," said Roebuck. "She made some good strides today as far as going to the basket and playing good defense. That's positive. We need that kind of effort out of her every game because she does attack the basket and she really did that tonight."
The Panthers shot .475 (28-for-59) from the field, .474 (9-for-19) at three-point range, and .684 (13-for-19) at the free throw line. The Sioux were 18-for-51 (.353) from the field, 6-for-18 (.333) beyond the arc and 12-for-17 (.706) at the free throw line.
Northern Iowa recorded 21 points off of UND's 19 turnovers and banked 28 points from inside the paint.
The Panthers won the tip and quickly took a 4-0 lead with baskets by Rachel Madrigal and Boeck. Wall nailed UND's first field goal of the game at 17:45, but UNI then set out on a 5-0 run to take a 9-2 lead.
Out of the first media timeout, the Fighting Sioux capped a 12-0 run with a long-range three-pointer by Youngblut to take an 11-9 lead. With a basket from beyond the arc by Lauck to follow, the Sioux led 14-9 - its largest lead of the game - with just over 11 minutes remaining in the half.
With 15 straight points, the Panthers countered with a run of their own to regain the lead. Oney accounted for six points, including a pair of three-pointers and Boeck dropped in five to help UNI shoot out to a 25-14 lead.
The Sioux held a brief 6-1 advantage to cut the margin down to seven, but with a trio of three-pointers, Northern Iowa took a 37-23 lead into the locker-room.
With a fresh half, the teams battled back-and-forth through the opening seven minutes until back-to-back baskets from K.K. Armstrong and a free throw by Oney inside the 11-minute mark gave UNI its first 20-point lead of the game.
The Sioux continued to fight back, but with Oney still hot behind the arc and Boeck scoring from nearly every mark, the Panthers were able to secure their third win in a row over program from the Dakotas.
"I saw improvement in the second half, especially in the area of turnovers," said Roebuck. "We just need to get better at protecting the basketball and we have to be able to make shots. You can't shoot 35 percent and expect to be successful."
North Dakota will remain on the road with Creighton up next on the schedule. The Fighting Sioux and the Bluejays will square off on Monday, Dec. 20 in their first meeting since 1987. Tip-off is slated for 5 p.m. at the D.J. Sokol Arena in Omaha, Neb.
GAME NOTES: UNI leads the series 0-2 since 1978. In the first game of the North Dakota/Northern Iowa series, the Panthers nabbed a 68-50 victory over the Fighting Sioux on Feb. 4, 1978 at the Drake Invitational in Des Moines, Iowa. During that game, sisters Bonnie and Connie Gebhardt of Monango, N.D., led the Fighting Sioux with 10 and 19 points, respectively ... Since beginning the transition to NCAA Division I status in 2007, the Fighting Sioux have gone 0-3 against members of the Missouri Valley Conference ... In seven of its first eight games this season, the University of North Dakota has been led by a freshman in double figures ... Since the inaugural season of the Great West Conference (2008-09), UND has gone 11-1 against league foes and 7-20 against non-conferenced opponents ... The University of North Dakota women's basketball program holds a 769-288 record all-time since the first game was played in 1974. Under head coach Gene Roebuck, UND is 593-124 ... All-time, the Fighting Sioux are 419-83 (.835) when it comes to defending their own court and are 323-39 (.892) under the tutelage of Gene Roebuck ... UND is 85-14 (.859) all-time at the Betty Engelstad Sioux Center, which opened prior to the 2004-05 season.
- Go Sioux -
