The Nebraska women’s basketball team improved to 6-1 on the year as it downed the Oral Roberts Golden Eagles 70-51 on Tuesday night.
Despite some first-half woes, the Cornhuskers were able to rebound and use their defense and player rotation to wear down the Eagles and secure the 19-point victory.
“I thought we played well defensively,” NU Coach Connie Yori said. “I thought mostly we were disciplined on both ends. Our players did a really good job of doing what we asked them to do, being disciplined throughout.”
In the first half, both teams struggled to get going offensively.
The Golden Eagles and Huskers shot below 33 percent from the field.
However, defensively Nebraska was on its game, forcing 16 first half turnovers while committing only six fouls.
Oral Roberts jumped out to a quick 5-0 lead despite back-to-back five-second violations forced by NU’s stingy pressure defense.
Nebraska quickly answered with a three-pointer from freshman forward Harleen Sidhu and back-to-back lay-ups by sophomore guards Kayla Kuhlmann and Dominique Kelley to retake the lead 7-5.
The Huskers extended their lead to 11-5 with 13:46 left in the half with a jumper by junior guard Nicole Neals.
That would be the last field goal Nebraska would hit for nearly six minutes.
NU held ORU scoreless for more than four minutes before Eagles guard Monah Pegorari hit a jumper to cut the lead to four.
With 8:11 left in the first half, Nebraska was able to muscle its lead to 18-13 with a free-throw junior forward Cory Montgomery.
Following the free throw from Montgomery, ORU forward Janae Voelker would close NU’s lead to 18-15
That would be the last bucket the Eagles would score the remainder of the half, as they only scored two points off of free throws.
Eventually NU would close out the half with an 11 point, 28-17 lead.
In the second half NU came out firing on all cylinders. However, it was Nebraska’s defense that kept ORU at bay.
“We thought we could play a lot better offensively in the second half,” said Golden Eagles Coach Jerry Finkbeiner. “The game was blown open for Nebraska in the first four minutes of the second half.”
The Huskers opened up the second half on an 11-3 run to extend their lead to 17 within the first five minutes of the second half.
From there, the Huskers shot a staggering 40 percent from the field, including 4-of-9 from distance.
Despite the first half shooting woes, Montgomery was a force in the paint.
Heading into the match, Finkbeiner said he thought Montgomery was a one dimensional player.
After she dropped 12 of her 20 points in the second half, Finkbeiner said he gained a lot of respect for Montgomery.
“We don’t have a lot of familiarity with the (Huskers),” Finkbeiner said. “(Montgomery) is a better rounded player than we thought she was.”
Montgomery collected her third double-double of her career and second double-double of the season with her 20 point, 11 rebound effort.
Montgomery’s 11 rebounds, eight of which came from the offensive glass, are both career highs for the junior Cannon Falls, Minn., native.
Still, without senior Kelsey Griffin, Yori said her team is going to have to continue to work hard on both sides of the ball to continue to be successful this season.
At the end of the game, NU had forced ORU into 25 turnovers but shot only 36.2 percent from the field.
“I think we’re going to be a grinding team,” Yori said. “Maybe not as efficient on offense, which is going to force us to be efficient defensively.
“I don’t think it’s going to be real easy for us on offense.”
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