Women’s basketball opens conference play beating Northern Illinois

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The Central Michigan women’s basketball team started the Mid-American Conference season off with a bang Thursday night defeating the Northern Illinois Huskies 86-67 in DeKalb, Ill.

“Tonight was a dog fight,” said head coach Sue Guevara. “It always is with a team like this, we knew that Northern wasn’t going to go away.”

Freshman guards Crystal Bradford and Jessica Green had 27 and 24 points respectively to lead CMU. Both were career highs.

“Crystal had a good game tonight,” Guevara said. “She finished tonight and she was under control.”

The game was back and forth early with neither team leading by more than three. Two 3-point shots by sophomore guard Niki DiGuilio gave the Chippewas a 19-15 lead halfway through the first half.

The teams continued to trade baskets from there.

A 3-pointer from NIU junior guard Satavia Taylor with 27 seconds left in the first half cut the CMU lead to 33-32. The Chippewas responded seconds later when freshman guard Kerby Tamm made a trey of her own to give CMU the 36-32 lead at halftime.

Taylor led the Huskies with 17 points.

In the second half the Chippewas offense exploded and scored 50 points. Bradford scored 12 of her team’s first 14 points in the second half to give CMU a 50-44 lead with 14:12 left in the game.

The Chippewas led 55-52 with 9:42 to go in the game when junior guard Jalisa Olive made a pair of free throws. From there the Chippewas had three straight steals and layups by Green, Olive, and Bradford to make it 63-52.

Moments later Green nailed a three to make it 66-52 and the Chippewas started to pull away. CMU made its free throws down the stretch to earn the win.

The Chippewas had just eight turnovers in the game, the lowest total so far this season.

“Today we had passes that led to shots and we were moving to passes,” Guevara said.  “I’m hoping this is part of the maturation process for this team. I hope so because taking care of the ball is going to be key in conference play.”

The next game is Sunday at 2 p.m. when the Chippewas travel to Toledo.