Melody Doss and Kelley Wiegman were standouts on the night as the Northern Kentucky University women’s basketball team was able to wrap-up its regular-season home schedule with a 68-61 Senior Night win over Kennesaw State in the Bank of Kentucky Center.
NKU (16-12, 7-6 A-Sun) was led by Wiegman with 17 points including going 6-for-6 from the free throw line and 3-for-4 from beyond the arc. Doss added on 15 points, five rebounds, and three assists. Christine Roush rounded out the top scorers with 14 points and four rebounds. The Norse ended the game shooting 46.7 percent (21-for-45) and 78.3 percent (18-for-23) from the free-throw line.
Jasmine McAllister led the Owls (16-12, 5-8 A-Sun) with a double-double, scoring 13 points and pulling in 10 boards. She was aided by Aaeron Smith with 12 points and Karly Frye with 11. As a team, the Owls shot 41.7 percent (20-for-48) including 38.1 percent (8-for-21) from three, and struggled from the free throw line, shooting 50 percent (13-for-26).
The game started out very fast-paced, but both teams struggled to score in the opening three and a half minutes. Kennesaw State’s Smith netted the first field goal at the 16:38 mark followed by a bucket by Faith Sanders a minute later to tie it at 3-3.
Rianna Gayheart gave the Norse a spark with a step-back triple followed by two layups by Melody Doss and gave NKU the 12-8 lead with 10:21 left.
The Owls kept pace with a three-pointer by Kelly Dulkoski brought the lead down to one, but at the other end Doss converted on a layup to stretch the lead back to 14-11 (7:51).
Kennesaw State continued to keep pace with a couple of runs late in the first half, starting with a 7-2 spurt to tie the game at 18 with 3:34 to go. Baskets from Gerrety and Doss helped the Norse regain the lead, but an 8-0 run in the final 90 seconds gave the Owls the lead at intermission, 27-23.
The team was led by the play in the post as Doss, Gerrety and Franson combined for 15 first-half points. Doss led the team in the half with nine.
Norse started the second half with an 8-2 run, converting on their first three field goal attempts and taking a 31-30 lead after a Roush free throw at 18:05. The Owls turned around to score four unanswered points, but a triple by Wiegman and a pair of free throws for Franson gave the Norse back the lead, 36-34, at the 16:08 mark.
A 3-pointer by Roush at 13:55 followed by a Doss layup shortly after gave the Norse its largest lead up to that point at 43-37. Kennesaw came back with a three and layup to cut the Norse lead down to 45-42 at the 10:57 mark.
A pull-up trey by Roush with 7:07 remaining sparked an 11-4 run to give NKU its largest lead of the night at 60-50. The Norse continued to hit their free throws down the stretch to hold on for the final score.
NKU will conclude the 2014-15 regular season on Saturday with a trip to Spartanburg, South Carolina, to face USC Upstate. The contest is slated for a 2 p.m. start time from Hodge Center. Links to live stats and the ESPN3 broadcast are available at NKUNorse.com.
NKU men cruise to easy road win in delayed game
Tyler White scored a game-high 19 points and Chad Jackson registered his second double-double of the season with 11 points and 13 rebounds, helping the Northern Kentucky men’s basketball team cruise to a 78-53 road win over Kennesaw State on Thursday afternoon.
The win was the 12th of the season for NKU, setting a new NCAA Division I era mark. Northern Kentucky is also in position to secure a home game in the quarterfinals of the Atlantic Sun Conference Championship. A Norse victory or a Lipscomb loss assures NKU of the No. 4 seed in the tourney.
The game was delayed from Wednesday night due to a snow storm in Georgia.
Kennesaw State (10-20, 4-9 A-Sun) took a brief 6-5 lead three-minutes into the game, but white-hot shooting from Tyler White, Todd Johnson and Tayler Persons began to open things up for the Norse.
“I thought Todd’s [Johnson] three early in the game was huge,” said head coach Dave Bezold. “It really calmed our guys down and we locked in on both ends of the floor. We talk to our guys about doing their job on every possession. Today, they followed through and the result showed.”
By the first media timeout, Northern Kentucky (12-16, 6-7 A-Sun) had built a 17-10 lead.
Stifling defense from the Norse took over and held the Owls scoreless for a period of 6:19. Meanwhile, Northern Kentucky continued firing on all cylinders on the offensive side, extending the NKU lead to as many as 24 points before taking a 44-24 advantage into the break.
NKU knocked down 15-of-27 field-goal attempts (55.6 percent) and 6-of-11 (54.5 percent) from long range. The Norse also knocked down 8-of-9 (88.9 percent) shots at the charity stripe.
On the other hand, KSU was limited to 8-for-24 (33.3 percent) shooting and just 1-for-9 (11.1 percent) from three in the stanza.
The Norse shot 50 percent (27-of-54) for the game, including 52.4 percent (11-of-21) from three-point territory. NKU’s defense held KSU to 37 percent (17-of-46) shooting from the floor and 29.4 percent (5-of-17) from three.
Johnson matched his career-high with four made three-pointers on his way to 12 points and Tayler Persons scored 10 points to go along with a game-high five assists.
Northern Kentucky returns home to The Bank of Kentucky Center and will host USC Upstate on Saturday night. Seniors Chad Jackson and Jordan Jackson will be honored for their commitment to the program in a pregame senior night ceremony. Tip off is set for 7 p.m.
From NKU Athletics