CLEVELAND – Senior Cassidy Glenn's layup with 34 seconds to play capped the largest comeback in Northern Illinois University women's basketball history, giving the Huskies a 72-71 victory over Ohio in the quarterfinals of the 2017 Mid-American Conference Women's Basketball Tournament at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland. 
 
Glenn's layup gave NIU its first and only lead of the game, but it was enough to propel the Huskies to their first 20-win season since 1993-94, their first win in Cleveland at the MAC Tournament since 2012 and their first trip to the semifinals since 2007. 
 
With 4:33 to play in the second quarter, the No. 4 seed Huskies trailed fifth-seeded Ohio by 22 points, 36-14, and NIU was down by 17, 41-24 at halftime thanks to a last-second layup by Renee Sladek.  The 22-point comeback represented the largest deficit overcome by a NIU women's basketball team. 
 
 "I don't think you really realize it until the buzzer actually goes off, what we were able to accomplish against a really good Ohio team," said NIU Head Coach Lisa Carlsen.  "You've got to find different ways all the time to win, and we've done that at times.  I think on the big stage, it's not always going to be pretty, not always going to be like everybody draws it up, but when the buzzer goes off and you've got more points than the other team, you're pretty happy about it."
 
Senior point guard Ally Lehman, who hit all seven of her second-half shots to finish the game with 17 points, seven rebounds and six assists, said NIU's comeback represented the character of her Huskie team .
 
"I have to say, my team is probably the best team I've ever been part of that can fight back, and we've proven it over and over again and I think today was just a great demonstration of what we're capable of," Lehman said."I mean, it's all heart, especially we went to the locker room at half time down, but we were into it, and we knew that we could come back."
 
After scoring 10 points in the first quarter and shooting 27 percent from the floor with just one three point field goal in nine tries in the first half, NIU made 70 percent of its field goals (19-of-27) in the second half, including 10-of-12 in the third quarter and 9-of-15 in the final period.
 
"I'm of the school that you just keep shooting," Carlsen said.  "Anybody who's followed us knows that there are times and stretches where we shoot it really well and there are times that we haven't shot it well, but we're going to shoot it.  I think [these players] believe that, so most of the time their confidence doesn't waver too much and obviously then we were then able to hit some big shots.  It doesn't get tight for us.  They know what we have to do to be successful, and we were just better at it in the second half."
 
Mikayla Voigt led the Huskies with 19 points, with all but two coming in the second half and eight in the fourth quarter.  Sladek provided most of the NIU offense in the first half with 10 of her 12 points keeping NIU in what turned out to be striking distance, and Courtney Woods added 12 points as well.  Kelly Smith's team-leading nine rebounds helped the Huskies win the battle of the boards. Glenn added eight rebounds, six in the second half.
 
NIU cut into the lead by five points by the end of the third quarter, outscoring the Bobcats 26-21 in the period while hitting 10 of their 12 field goals and holding Ohio to just five-of-15 shooting.  After three quarters, NIU trailed 62-50.
 
Ohio extended the lead to 15 points at 65-50 on a Katie Barker three-pointer with 8:50 to play before the Huskies got back-to-back three-pointers from Voigt and Woods to cut the lead to single digits for the first time since the first quarter.  Ohio went up by 11, 67-58, after two Quiera Lampkins free throws with 7:30 left but managed just four points – and one field goal – the rest of the game.  Meanwhile, NIU got another three from Woods to pull within six at 5:14 on the clock and tied it at 69-all on a layup by Voigt with 2:12 to play. 
 
Ohio made just 2-of-14 shots from the field in the fourth quarter and shot 7-for 29 (24 percent) in the second half.
OU's Lampkins, who led the Bobcats with 17 points, hit two more free throws for a 71-69 Ohio lead with 1:35 to play.  Voigt made one of two free throws the next time up the court, setting up Glenn's eventual game-winner. 
 
The drama wasn't quite over, though.  Ohio's Amani Burke missed a three-pointer with 19 seconds to play that was rebounded by Glenn.  After an Ohio foul and a Huskie turnover, the Bobcats got one more shot. Burke's three-pointer with three seconds again went begging and Woods covered the ball as time expired.
 
NIU takes on No. 8 seed Western Michigan Friday at 10 a.m. (CT) in the semifinals after the Broncos upset No. 1 seed Central Michigan, 67-63, in Wednesday's first game.  The game can be seen on ESPN3 and heard on WLBK AM 1360/FM 98.9 and on the TuneIn app.
 
-- NIU --