Women's Basketball | November 25

Box Score BAYAMON, Puerto Rico - The Northern Illinois University women's basketball team rallied from a fourth quarter deficit Saturday afternoon to defeat the Indiana State Sycamores 67-62 in the Puerto Rico Clasico at Coliseo Ruben Rodriguez.

"We got off to a good start, and everyone feels good when the ball's going in the basket," said head coach Lisa Carlsen. "We hit a spell where we didn't take care of the basketball and Indiana State made some key buckets. We had to get back to what we needed to do, and I thought the group responded in the fourth."

Redshirt-Junior guard Sidney McCrea (Cedar Rapids, Iowa/Prairie) led the Huskies with a career-high 20 points, besting her previous high of 17. McCrea was 7-for-10 from the field with four three-pointers.

Jayden Marable (Bolingbrook, Ill./Bolingbrook) scored 15 points and added six rebounds as well as a game-high six assists. Brooke Stonebraker (Versailles, Ohio/Versailles), Grace Hunter (Monroeville, Ind./Bellmont) and Tara Stauffacher (Columbus, Wis./Wisconsin) each had eight points. Stonebraker led all players with 12 rebounds.

NIU (3-3) led 47-36 with 7:49 to go in the third quarter after a Marable three-pointer. The Huskies only made one more basket the rest of the quarter. Indiana State closed the quarter on a 15-2 run with Mya Glanton scoring the first five and Kiley Bess the last 10. Bess' three with 0:12 left in the third gave the Sycamores their first lead of the game, 51-49.

A Glanton basket two minutes into the fourth put Indiana State ahead by four, 53-49, the Sycamores' largest lead of the game. NIU came back and tied the game at the free throw line, with Hunter and Stonebraker going 4-for-4 to level the game at 53-53 with 6:49 to go. The Huskies took back the lead with 6:13 to go when McCrea's third three of the day put NIU up 56-55. That sparked an 8-0 Huskies run, which McCrea capped with a layup to put NIU up by six 61-55 with 4:29 left.

"Sidney's a player that's hard to speed up," Carlsen said. "She thinks and understands the game, and when our team is frazzled, she's one of those players that's going to be calm and steady and get us into what we need. She made some big plays in a stretch where we really needed it."

Indiana State (2-4) got as close as three points with 3:06 to go when a Bess three made the score 63-60. McCrea answered with a three of her own to put NIU back up by six with 1:23 left in the game, a triple that eventually locked up the third consecutive win for the Huskies.

NIU built a 13-4 lead in the first 4:50 behind 11 combined points from Stauffacher and Hunter. The Huskies' advantage grew to 18-7 at the 3:27 mark on McCrea's first three of the game and a Stonebraker layup assisted by McCrea. The Sycamores closed the gap to nine at the end of the quarter on layups from Chloe Williams and Asia Donald.

The Huskies scored the first seven points of the second quarter, with the last five by McCrea, to take a 31-15 lead with 7:13 to go until halftime. Indiana State scored seven straight points to cut the NIU lead to eight, 31-23, with 5:43 to go in the second. Three-pointers from Marable and Kortney Drake (Wilton, Iowa/Kirkwood CC) late in the quarter extended the NIU lead to 13, 42-29, and the Huskies took a 42-32 lead into the half.

The Huskies shot 35.1 percent from the field and were 17-for-19 from the free throw line. Indiana State shot 33.3 percent and were held to 7-for-27 from the three-point arc. Bess led the Sycamores with 18 points.

NIU is next in action on Wednesday, Nov. 29 when the Huskies head to Madison, Wis. to take on the Wisconsin Badgers. Tip-off is at 6:30 p.m. CT.

—NIU—