Game Notes: (WBK) Concordia University-Wisconsin @ North Central College (11/20/19)

Final Score
NCC 62, CUW 43

Game Summary
I was a little nervous at the outset of this one, as after the Cardinals (2-2) scored the game's first basket a minute in, the Falcons (1-1) responded with a 7-0 run. But that was their high water mark of the day, as after Concordia took an 8-7 lead, the Cardinals scored eight straight to close out the quarter, then tacked on nine more in the first few minutes of the second quarter. The Falcons eventually stopped the bleeding, but not before the Cardinals pushed the lead as high as 20 before taking a 31-14 lead into the locker room. The second half saw the Falcon offense get going a little bit, but the Cardinals had an answer pretty much every time, as they took a 43-26 lead into the final frame. North Central led by as many as 21 in the final frame, with the Falcons cutting it to a dozen just over halfway through the fourth, but a couple threes and some free throws were enough to ice the game away.

Key Players

• Alanna Newsome (NCC): 6-13 FG (2-4 3PT), 1-1 FT; 15 pts, 2 reb, 1 stl. It wasn't the most efficient outing, but it was a solid one for the sophomore as she was able to get to the basket a number of times with varying degrees of success. But she shot well from deep and played pretty good defense. All told, a good evening.
• Maya Walls (NCC): 6-7 FG (2-3 3PT); 14 pts, 6 reb, 2 blk. Maya had a really good night. North Central ran a wheel-type play a couple times where Maya came around and cut kind of back door to the basket for a wide open layup. She did some damage on the perimeter as well, playing a good inside-out game on offense, while also playing really good interior defense against a physical opponent.
• Haydn Braun (NCC): 4-7 FG (4-5 3PT), 2-2 FT; 14 pts, 5 reb, 1 ast. Haydn took on the role of sniper in this game, hitting one that tied the game at seven early, one during the 17-0 run, one in the third to push the lead to 19, and the exclamation point at the end last night. I think the number that impresses me more, given her size: five rebounds, good for third-best on the team.

Key Stats

• NCC: Outrebounded CUW 45-39. I had a hard time picking out a stat for the Cardinals, almost going with their 22 points off 13 Concordia turnovers, but I like the rebounding number. For a team that typically loses the rebounding battle, going up against a relatively big, physical team to win the battle on the boards like that is a good sign. I mentioned that I was impressed by Hadyn's five, but you got 13 between your two starting forwards (Mitrese Smith had a game-high seven), and everyone who played had at least two, with all but two logging at least three boards. That's a good team effort.
• CUW: 15-59 FG (25.4%), 1-13 3PT (7.7%), 12-24 FT (50.0%). And this doesn't do the numbers justice. The Falcons were an awful 3-24 from the field in the first half, including 0-7 from beyond the arc. Going 8-14 from the line in the first 20 minutes was the only saving grace for their offense. We got regression to the mean in the second half, because no team is going to shoot that poorly for 40 minutes, but that's still an eye-popping final line.

Final Thoughts

I mentioned in the last game notes that Natali Dimitrova was out, and she was again; I thought I heard something about a broken foot, but I don't know what the truth of that is. Regardless, given the two tough losses the Cardinals were coming off, they needed to have this one, and went and got it in pretty convincing fashion. The defense was good, accounting for part of the poor shooting night, but the Falcons also missed a ton of open looks. 43 points is the best defensive performance for the Cardinals since 2011 (pre-System, which makes sense).

Hopefully this gives the Cards something to build off of as they continue their homestand. They host UW-Stevens Point on Saturday.