CMU women's basketball gets second win at Butler
Central Michigan University sophomore forward Ayanna-Sarai Darrington pushes back against Davenport freshman center Amaya Henderson getting closer to the net at McGuirk Arena on Sunday, Nov. 9, 2025. Darrington scored a total of 15 points and 11 rebounds. (CM Life | Jasmine Brookins)
After coming off a dominant win over Davenport last Sunday at home, CMU women's basketball proved tonight that they can perform well on the road, too.
The Chippewas, now 2-1, beat Butler on Wednesday evening, 68-59.
It wasn’t until the final quarter that CMU’s victory was certain. After being quiet on the scoring end for most of the game, sophomore guard Madi Morson flipped a switch in the fourth.
Morson drained a pull up jumper to extend the Chippewa lead to five in the middle of the quarter, then made two layups and another midrange shot. Her hot streak gave CMU an eight-point lead and squashed the Bulldog’s hopes for a late-game comeback.
“Morson is talented. She’s a clutch player,” head coach Kristin Haynie said. “She didn’t let the first three quarters’ [shooting percentage] affect her, she had short-term memory and was able to continue to make plays down the stretch for us.”
Momentum wasn’t always in the Chippewas’ direction on Wednesday. They trailed by eight in the first quarter due to a slower start and a plethora of turnovers.
“In the first quarter, Butler had 13 points off of our turnovers, so we really talked about taking care of the ball,” Haynie said.
The Chippewas showed a different intensity at the start of the second quarter.
A minute in, freshman guard Rylan Buschell drew an offensive foul, igniting her teammates. This was immediately followed by back-to-back buckets from senior forward Demetria Prewitt and a 7-0 CMU run.
Points in the paint were a key factor to this Chippewa win. In fact, 30 out of 52 CMU points were in the paint.
“We’re doing a really good job of feeding our bigs the ball in the paint and also our guards are doing a good job getting downhill and scoring,” Haynie said.
They were also extremely effective on the offensive boards, recording 14 offensive rebounds on the night.
“Those are super cool,” Haynie said. “We were talking about that as one of our keys heading into the game. For us to get 19 second chance points is huge for us, so they did well with the gameplan.”
Morson was the leading scorer with 14 points, while senior forward Nekhu Mitchell followed close behind with 12. Mitchell also added seven rebounds. Fifth year forward Zareia Chevre, sophomore forward Ayanna-Sarai Darrington and Prewitt all had 10 points.
Going into next week, Haynie hopes to cut down on turnovers.
“Turnovers are our achilles heel, so we got to do a better job of taking care of the ball,” she mentioned.
The Chippewas take on Detroit Mercy on Nov. 19 at 7 p.m. in Detroit.
