Feb. 6, 2011

Box Score

Site: Columbus, Ohio (Value City Arena)
Score: Northwestern 74, Ohio State 68
Records: NU (16-8, 5-6 Big Ten), Ohio State (13-9, 4-6 Big Ten)
Next NU Event: Thursday, Feb. 10 --at Wisconsin (Kohl Center), 7 p.m.

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Senior Amy Jaeschke put the team on her shoulders, scoring 29 points as Northwestern rolled against Ohio State, 74-68 at Value City Arena Sunday evening. Northwestern used a 25-3 second-half run to record its 16th win of the season and complete the season sweep of Ohio State. It was NU's first win in Columbus since the 1996-97 season.

"It was a hard-fought game and a game of runs," head coach Joe McKeown said after the game. "From about six minutes left in the game until about the one-minute mark, we executed very well and did what we needed to do to get it done. I thought we did a good job coming back after Ohio State built a big lead to open the half."

In fact, the Buckeyes pulled away in the second frame to take a 52-44 lead, but Northwestern rattled off 12 unanswered points, capped off by a hard-fought lay-in by Jaeschke, to take a 56-52 upper hand with just over eight minutes remaining in the game. The 'Cats held Ohio State scoreless for nearly seven minutes while distancing themselves from the Bucks.

Northwestern continued to pour it on offensively, scoring 19 of the game's next 21 points over a 10-minute span to pull ahead, 63-54, with 3:32 remaining. The Wildcats withstood a late offensive push by Ohio State to pull out their 16th victory of the season.

Jaeschke scored 19 of her game-high 29 points in the second half. When asked how it felt to beat Ohio State twice this year after never beating them for her first three years, she answered, "It feels great because it's nice to see how far our team has come. Ohio State is an amazing team and beating them means so much just because they are always strong."

Northwestern found its offensive spark from deep to open the game, as threes from Kendall Hackney and Meshia Reed tied the tally at six early on. Hackney, a Cincinnati, Ohio, native, recorded eight of NU's first 11 points to set the offensive rhythm. Scoring was abundant through the first eight minutes, as a layup by Jaeschke notched the game at 15, but both squads grew silent over the next five minutes, scoring only four times during that time.

The game remained neck-and-neck until a slick pass from Dannielle Diamant to Jaeschke gave NU the largest lead of the game--a 25-22 advantage at the 5:13 mark of the first half. Neither team allowed the other to get more than a four-point lead in the half and in total, the frame saw six ties and 12 lead changes.

After a flurry of scoring in the closing five minutes, Ohio State took a 34-32 edge into the break. Jaeschke led Northwestern with 10 points while Hackney added eight and Jones chipped in six. NU held an 18-15 edge on the glass in the first half.

Northwestern got a lift from the bench, as Tailor Jones and Diamant combined to score 14 points and pull down seven rebounds.

The Wildcats are next in action at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 10 when they battle Wisconsin at the Kohl Center.

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