Beth Marshall has seen Northwestern suffer. Sidelined the past two years with injuries, the junior point guard witnessed the Wildcats go a combined 12-49. On Tuesday, Marshall had enough. The Fishers, Ind., native scored five points in the final two minutes to propel NU to a 59-55 victory over No. 15 DePaul.”I’ve worked so hard with my teammates and our trainers to get back from my injuries and I love to play under pressure,” Marshall said. “It was awesome.”Thanks to Marshall’s game-high 14 points, NU notched its first victory over a ranked team in four years.”We talked all week about winning back the city (of Chicago),” Marshall said. “This is a huge rivalry for us. We knew going into it it wasn’t going to be easy, but we all wanted it so bad so we just kept fighting.”The two squads were neck-and-neck from the opening tip: In the first 11 minutes of the game, the lead switched hands three times. With just more than nine minutes left in the opening period, sophomore guard Maggie Mocchi drove to the hoop and collided with Deirdre Naughton, the Blue Demons’ leading scorer. Naughton fell to the ground and did not get up. She was helped to the bench several minutes later and did not return.Without Naughton, DePaul struggled to put points on the board. The Blue Demons finished the half shooting 23.5 percent from the field. “We were already struggling from an offensive rhythm point of view, even with Deirdre,” DePaul coach Doug Bruno said. “That’s a testament to (NU’s) defense. They do a great job defensively.”NU went into the lockerroom with a five-point lead and its advantage grew to as many as 11 points in the second half. But the Blue Demons slowly clawed their way back, and with three-and-a-half minutes left in the game, DePaul forward Felicia Chester put DePaul ahead, 50-49. Chester’s layup accounted for two of the team’s nine fast break points in the second half.”DePaul is all about fast-breaking and getting a lot of shots up during the game,” junior center Amy Jaeschke said. “We knew it was very possible that they could make a run on us so we just had to be ready for it and then respond.”After NU lost its edge, the Cats’ upperclassmen took control. Marshall hit a 3-pointer with just more than two minutes left to cut the Blue Demons’ lead in half. One minute later, junior guard Meshia Reed tipped in an errant trey to pull the Cats within one. Jaeschke pulled down a rebound on DePaul’s next possession, and NU took control with less than a minute to play. Senior guard Kristin Cartwright was fouled with 38 seconds left, and she nailed her two free throws to put the Cats in the lead. Marshall added two more points from the charity stripe on NU’s second-to-last possession.”You have to have confidence in yourself and your teammates for 40 minutes,” Marshall said. “We went down but we had to climb our way back. And we did.”Marshall scored 11 of her 14 points in the second half. Nine of those 11 points came on three 3-pointers.”She’s got that Indiana swagger when she shoots the ball,” coach Joe McKeown said. “She has that Indiana attitude like ‘every shot I shoot is going in.’ We need those kind of players.”With the win, NU remains undefeated in its first four games, the first 4-0 start for the Cats since the 1995-1996 season.

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