The wait is over.
Northwestern snapped a 10-game losing streak and earned its first conference win in a 73-54 victory over Rutgers on Sunday.
Senior forward Grace Sullivan returned to her usual offensive form with 20 points, just one behind junior guard Casey Harter’s 21. Harter, though, attributed her team-high scoring to senior guard Caroline Lau.
“My good friend sitting next to me had 16 assists, so a lot of it came from her,” Harter said.
With 12 points, Lau was the third Wildcat (7-10, 1-5 Big Ten) player with a double-figure scoreline Sunday. But the bulk of her contributions came from her career-high 16 assists and midcourt playmaking.
Coach Joe McKeown said Lau’s cross-court speed was always apparent in practice, but Sunday, she and her teammates finished the job at the net.
“I thought Caroline played one of the best games of the season for her,” McKeown said. “You want that from your point guard to make everyone better.”
Although the Scarlet Knights (8-9, 0-6 Big Ten) began the game with a 6-0 lead, NU didn’t fall too far behind, trailing just four points at the end of the first quarter.
Early in the second quarter, Sullivan knocked down one of her signature mid-range jumpers. Then, the 3-pointers got going on both sides.
Rutgers struck first, and Harter responded with a triple of her own to cut the Scarlet Knights’ lead to two. The Scarlet Knights answered with yet another jumper to beat the clock.
But freshman guard Amparo López, who had just entered the floor, made the first 3-pointer of her NU career in what her coach called a “shot in the arm.”
“Today’s her birthday,” McKeown said. “I told her not to miss.”
López’s jumper kick-started a 13-0 scoring run for the ’Cats. The 4-minute stretch included an assist from López to Sullivan, who caught the ball under the net, pivoted and sank another jumper to tie the game for the first time.
And it was Harter who took the lead at the free-throw line, going 7-for-8 overall.
“She’s a silver lining for us, unsung hero, all the things,” McKeown said. “She does all the dirty work, grinds, rebounds, dives on the floor — I think one of the most underrated players in the Big Ten.”
The ’Cats outscored the Scarlet Knights 24-12 in the second quarter. They carried the momentum into the next half in large part thanks to Lau, who assisted Sullivan and Harter for layups before scoring one of her own, bringing the lead to 47-33.
But a Rutgers steal triggered a foul-ridden stretch of the quarter, during which the Scarlet Knights cut the lead down to ten through free throws.
Still, the ’Cats were never in danger of losing their lead. They regained their footing with a Lau assist to sophomore forward Tayla Thomas, whose layup ended the brief scoring drought.
And Sullivan, who had been double-teamed on every possession, broke through the Scarlet Knights’ defense to hit two more mid-range jumpers in a row.
Along with her teammates, the Big Ten’s leading scorer put up a performance that was a far cry from the team’s 79-47 loss to Minnesota on Thursday.
“The biggest thing today, the difference has been, like I said, we made baskets,” McKeown said.
As the third quarter clock wound down, Lau released the ball from behind the arc just in time to beat the buzzer. The ’Cats didn’t look back from there, maintaining a comfortable lead that hovered around 20 points throughout the fourth quarter.
The last time the ’Cats endured a double-digit losing streak was in 2008. McKeown inherited the team at the start of the next season.
Now, McKeown himself is set to retire at the end of the season after 18 years at the helm. He’s no stranger to losing streaks, but he’s no stranger to breaking them, either.
“It was one of those feel-good games that we needed,” he said. “We just needed it as a team.”
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