Northwestern University Athletics
Northwestern
Penn State
Northwestern Stuns No. 22 Penn State, 59-48
1/27/2005 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Jan. 27, 2005
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EVANSTON, Ill. -- All season long, Northwestern Head Coach Beth Combs has talked about competing hard for the entire 40 minutes. Thursday night at Welsh-Ryan Arena, the Wildcats not only competed, they dominated for 40 minutes to knock off Big Ten-leading and 22nd-ranked Penn State, 59-48.
The win is Northwestern's first over a ranked opponent since Jan. 17, 1999, when the Wildcats bested No. 17 Ohio State, 48-41. The win snaps the Lady Lions' 12-game winning streak in the series. The last time NU defeated PSU was Jan. 31, 1997, in a 68-65 decision.
The loss was Penn State's first of the Conference season, dropping it to 12-7 overall, 7-1 in the Big Ten. NU improves to 5-16, 2-6 in the League.
"We just beat a fantastic team," Combs said. "All season long we have talked about work ethic and tonight we did some good things and Penn State was unable to respond."
Junior Ifeoma Okonkwo (Spring, Texas/Klein Oak) scored a game-high 19 points for the Wildcats while senior Sarah Kwasinski (Chicago, Ill./Fenwick) contributed 16 and senior Samantha McComb (Farmington Hills, Mich./North Farmington) chipped in 10 points.
It was a game eerily identical to the Wildcats' 81-76 loss at then-No. 23 Iowa on Jan. 16, with Northwestern shooting lights out in the first half -- this time en route to a 37-18 halftime lead.
Leading 15-12 at the 11:59 mark, Okonkwo started and capped a 10-0 Wildcat run with a pair of layups to put NU up 25-12 with 6:24 to play. Between Okonkwo's buckets, senior Melissa Culver (Littleton, Colo./Heritage), Kwasinksi and McComb all nailed shots.
Northwestern extended that lead to 19 points after a pair Okonkwo free throws with 10 seconds left. NU was 16-of-28 (57 percent) from the field in the first half.
"We passed, we scored and we defended," Combs said. "We did everything we could for 20 minutes."
For a team that had been outrebounded in 16-of-20 contests coming into Thursday night, Northwestern ripped down 25 first-half boards to Penn State's nine. NU finished with a 37-27 advantage in rebounds, with freshman Melissa Miller (Bloomington, Minn./The Breck School) grabbing a game-high eight.
The Wildcats came out of the locker room hot again, finding themselves up by 26 points when freshman Sara Stutz (Glenview, Ill./Glenbrook South) punctuated an 8-0 run with a steal and a coast-to-coast layup.
Against Iowa in the second half, NU hit a cold-spell that the Hawkeyes turned into a huge game-winning run. Thursday night, the Wildcats again went cold from the field -- including one 12-minute stretch without a field goal -- but this time they played suffocating defense that never allowed Penn State to get within nine points.
McComb hit 5-of-6 free throws in the final minute to ice the game for Northwestern.
"I am more pleased with our second-half performance," Combs said. "Things did not go so well for us but we still responded and stepped up. They made a run but we countered and took care of business."
The Wildcats return to action against their fourth-consecutive ranked opponent at 2 p.m. Sunday when No. 24 Purdue comes to Welsh-Ryan Arena.
