Women’s Basketball

When senior guard Ashley Deary rolled in a layup to give Northwestern a 16-2 lead less than four minutes into Sunday’s game, it looked like the Wildcats were well on their way to making quick work of Evansville.

Instead, a 24-12 second-quarter advantage for the Aces (0-5) kept things close at halftime. But in the second half, NU (5-1) did enough to avoid a letdown loss, riding senior forward Nia Coffey to a 88-66 victory.

Coffey scored 14 of her 30 points on the day in the first quarter, scoring inside and outside as the Cats sprinted to a 31-12 edge by the end of the period. Senior forward Lauren Douglas said Coffey, who played in her second game following a two-game absence with injury, has a calming effect on her team when she’s on the floor.

“She’s just a great player, obviously, and … one of our biggest leaders,” Douglas said. “It’s great having her back out there.”

Evansville climbed back against an all-second unit NU lineup trotted out by coach Joe McKeown. The Aces hit 5-of-7 from 3 while the Cats shot just 26.7 percent from the field in the second quarter, allowing Evansville to cut NU’s lead to 43-36 at halftime.

McKeown said breakdowns in communication on the defensive end were a major culprit in his team’s second-quarter lull.

“We were a little sloppy at times,” he said. “Giving them open 3s to their best shooters is not a healthy thing to do if you aspire to be a great team.”

As the Cats stumbled through the second quarter, Coffey failed to register a single point in the period. But she came alive after the break to help stabilize the NU offense, scoring 14 of the team’s 25 points in the third quarter and dominating the smaller front line of the Aces.

Coffey’s presence in the paint was too much for Evansville to handle, helping NU take a 68-50 lead into the final quarter. And after the Aces cut the lead to just four points in the second quarter, the Cats held them off the rest of the way to secure the victory.

Importantly for NU, the defensive breakdowns that opened the door for Evansville to get back into the game were limited in the second half. The Cats held the Aces to just 11-for-32 shooting after halftime, stymieing their opponents’ comeback efforts.

“We kind of forgot some of our defensive principles, and we maybe weren’t talking as loud as we should’ve,” sophomore guard Amber Jamison said of her team’s defense earlier in the game. “After halftime, we came back and made that adjustment.”

Jamison chipped in a career-high 15 points and a 3-for-4 line from beyond the arc, and Douglas scored 9 while starting in place of injured senior guard Christen Inman to get past the 1000-point mark for her career.

But Coffey was the key player for NU, which was coming off an upset win over No. 16 Florida on Friday. Following back-to-back victories, the Cats and their star forward will look to extend their current win streak to three games on Thursday against Virginia.

After the potentially-draining victory over a ranked Gators team that could be a major boost for his team in March, McKeown said he was happy with his team’s focus on Sunday’s game.

“We came out ready to play, we came out really strong,” he said. “We can’t worry about those things. We’ve got to move forward.”

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Twitter: @maxschuman28