Game Notes: (WBK) Carthage College @ North Central College (12/4/21)

Final Score
NCC 50, Carthage 40

Game Summary
This one was never really in doubt as the Cardinals (4-4, 1-0) jumped out to an 8-0 lead and never looked back. The Firebirds (4-3, 1-1) couldn't really claw back as North Central pushed the lead to double digits by late in the opening frame and led 16-8 after the first ten minutes. The Cardinals got it right back to double digits in the second, and other than a brief moment of Carthage cutting it to nine, it stayed there, with back to back threes late making it 31-16 going into the break. North Central led by as many as 18, and did get cold in the fourth again, but the lead was sufficient, and the Firebirds would get no closer than eight in the closing stages.

Key Players

• Mitrese Smith (NCC): 7-12 FG, 1-1 FT; 15 pts, 5 reb (2 off), 1 blk. It's great to have a threat in the paint, and Mitrese has looked pretty good so far this season. Granted, this is just the second home game of the year, so I haven't seen much, but this was a good showing. She's also picked up a good elbow jumper as well, which is a nice weapon to have in the arsenal.
• Elle Sutter (NCC): 3-7 FG (2-5 3PT), 1-2 FT; 9 pts, 11 reb (2 off), 2 ast, 1 blk, 3 stl. Elle Sutter made some good plays in the opener against St. Mary's, and played well enough to work her way into the starting lineup in recent weeks. She's rewarded the faith placed in her with another good performance in this one on both ends, wreaking some havoc defensively while showing some scoring prowess. And she's only a sophomore.
• Lauren Knight (CAR): 5-9 FG (3-3 3PT), 2-2 FT; 15 pts, 6 reb. Knight went down in the first half with what looked like a leg injury, and couldn't seem to put any weight on it. But she came back in in the second half, and was hitting some long threes to try and get the Firebirds back into it. The Cardinals did a good job after she hit a couple though to try and make her work harder for those shots, and ultimately limited the damage.

Key Stats

• NCC: 14 assists on 18 field goals. It was hard to pick one thing, because a lot of the stats were pretty close in this one, but this jumped out at me when I went to look at it. That level of assists to field goals is really good, and even though the offense went cold in the fourth, the defense stayed strong and held on to get a win against a good Carthage team.
• CAR: 12-53 FG (22.6%). This was the big thing for me. NCC played outstanding defense in this one, including holding the Firebirds to 4-22 shooting from beyond the arc. Getting six steals and blocking three shots, including one or two impressive plays, was awesome too.

CCIW Scoreboard Watch

• @ MIL 73 (5-3, 1-0), AUG 62 (5-3, 0-1)
• WHE 75 (8-1, 1-1), @ ELM 57 (1-7, 0-1)
• @ IWU 75 (3-4, 1-0), CRL 62 (5-1, 0-1)
• @ NPU 73 (6-1, 0-0), Chicago 64

Final Thoughts

It was good to get back at it after this team was away from home for so long. I wasn't sure what to expect tonight, considering this Carthage team had just won against Wheaton on Wednesday, and Tim Bernero's squads have always been tough to play. But the Cardinals got out to that great start, literally never trailed, and bounced back in a big way after getting trounced at Chicago on Wednesday. It gets the team to .500 on the year, but also gets a big first conference win, something that took several tries in the shortened campaign last winter. The Cardinals are on the bye in conference on Wednesday, but welcome in UW-Stevens Point for a 6pm contest that night.