Feb. 17, 2011
Box Score
Post-Game Interview
DES MOINES, Iowa -
Illinois State's seven-game winning streak came to an end with a 67-58 loss at Drake (13-12, 7-7 MVC) Thursday night. The Redbirds (17-7, 9-4 MVC) fell to 5-7 on the road this season.
Illinois State came into the game leading the Valley in scoring and field goal percentage, but had its worst offensive performance in eight games. ISU shot just 35.9 percent (23-64) and had its lowest scoring output since scoring 56 at Wichita State Jan. 16. The Redbirds had been shooting 46.5 percent during their winning streak, but reverted back to the performance from the three-game skid that preceded it, when they shot 34.6 percent.
Emily Hanley, Katie Broadway and Shala Jackson, ISU's top-three scorers, combined to shoot 12-for-41 in the game. Hanley did record her fourth double-double of the season with team-highs of 13 points and 11 rebounds. Jackson added nine points, five rebounds and two steals. Amanda Clifton had nine assists and five steals.
"Drake outplayed us tonight. They hustled, they executed and they wanted to win more than we did," said head coach Stephanie Glance. "When you are on a winning streak, you need to maintain a high level of focus and we didn't have that focus tonight. When we were missing our shots, we just kept shooting instead of focusing on our defense and letting that dictate our offense. Our defense has been outstanding the last seven games and we needed to pick that up when our shots weren't falling."
Kristin Turk, the Valley's leading scorer, scored a game-high 26 points, with 18 coming in the second half. Rachael Hackbarth recorded a double-double with 16 points and 17 rebounds, the most a Redbird opponent has had all season.
The Redbirds struggled shooting the ball early, making just three of their first 11 shots of the game, and trailed the majority of the first seven minutes. The offense started to click with a 15-2 run to give the Redbirds a commanding 23-13 lead with 7:38 remaining. Broadway made two three-pointers and Candace Sykes added five points in the run, as the Redbirds made six of their nine shots.
That five-minute run proved to be the best offensive stretch of the half for the Redbirds, who shot just 2-for-12 from the field the rest of the half. Drake used a 12-2 run over the final five minutes, led by six points from Turk, to tie the score at halftime, 27-27. Broadway and Spanich each had six points in the half. Hackbarth had 12 points and seven rebounds to lead all players.
The run continued into the second half, as the Bulldogs scored six-straight points to regain the lead, 33-27.Turk nailed a three in the corner after a media timeout to stretch the Drake lead to 42-33 at the 10:45 mark. The Redbirds started the half shooting 2-for-15 from the field.
Turk made two jumpers to give the Bulldogs their largest lead of the game, 51-38, with 8:21 remaining. The Redbirds started to chip away, with Clifton stealing a pass in the backcourt and finding Hanley for a layup to cut the deficit down to single-digits, 53-45. Three possessions later, Jackson made a driving jumper that would have made it a six-point game, but she was called for a charge.
The Redbirds made it interesting in the final minute with three quick scores. After two Clifton free throws, she stole the inbounds pass and found Broadway for a short jumper. Drake missed a fastbreak layup on the other end and Sykes went coast-to-coast for a layup to pull the Redbirds within five, 61-56, with 49 seconds left. The Redbirds failed to score on their next three possessions and Drake tacked on six free throws to hang on for the win.
Illinois State visits Creighton Saturday at 2:05 p.m. The game will be broadcast on WJBC.com at the start and will switch over to WJBC at the conclusion of the ISU men's game at Western Michigan.
