Marquette University Athletics
Marquette University
Cincinnati
Women's Hoops Drops Cincinnati, 71-58
2/11/2000 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Feb. 11, 2000
CINCINNATI, Ohio - The Marquette women's basketball team dominated the boards and shot 52% from the field in dropping Cincinnati 71-58 tonight in the Shoemaker Center. The Golden Eagles overcame 20 turnovers and eight Bearcat threes in improving to 19-4 overall and 11-1 in Conference USA. The victory, Marquette's fifth consecutive win, keeps the Golden Eagles two games ahead of the rest of the C-USA pack. With the loss, Cincinnati sees its record fall to 11-11, 5-7.
"Obviously our defense and rebounding were keys to the game," Marquette head coach Terri Mitchell said. "We need to cut down on our turnovers, but we were able to overcome that tonight with some solid team play. Once again, we did what we had to do."
After a back-and-forth opening 10 minutes of the contest, Marquette went on a 10-0 run to go up 27-16 with just under three minutes. Sarah Zawodny and Ebony Williams each had four points off the bench to aid the Golden Eagle's cause. However, Cincinnati forward Laura Wilder hit a pair of threes and a free throw to help the Bearcats stay alive. Heidi Bowman tallied the final four points of the half to give Marquette a 32-23 lead at the break. As has been the trend of late for Marquette, everybody got into the act, with seven players finding the scoring column in the first half. The Golden Eagles also outrebounded UC 27-10 before the intermission.
Marquette extended its lead to 13 early in the second half by going inside to Abbie Willenborg, who tallied six quick points.
The Golden Eagles never looked back.
Kiesha Oliver hit a pair of threes and two highlight drives to the hoop as Marquette pushed the lead to 22 with 4:27 remaining. However, the Bearcats had one last charge left, as Candice Holley hit 11 of her game high 17 points in the second half. Cincinnati cut it to 10 on back-to-back three pointers by Candice Roberson, but clutch free-throw shooting sealed the deal for Marquette. Led by Kristi Johnson, who went 6-6 from the line after the break, the Golden Eagles converted 11-12 attempts from the charity stripe, balancing out a poor 3-10 first-half performance.
Marquette won the final rebounding battle 53-25 and held Madinah Slaise, UCUs leading scorer, to eight points below her average on 3-15 shooting.
Willenborg concluded the game with her ninth double-double of the season, tallying 16 points and 11 boards. Oliver led the Golden Eagles with 17 points, while Johnson (12) and Williams (10), who went 5-5 from the field, also reached double-digits. Lisa Oldenburg grabbed 12 rebounds and dished out four assists.
"I felt that once we got into a rhythym that it was important to play everybody," Mitchell said. "We got some clutch performances off the bench, which is needed with another big game coming up this weekend."
The Golden Eagles conclude their four-game road swing at Louisville on Sun., Feb.13. Tip-off at the Lady Cards' Freedom Hall is scheduled for 1 p.m. (CT).
