“We always say we’re best when we’re playing fast, getting the ball out fast, and hitting it ahead. I think we had 20 points off their turnovers,” Parrish said. “That just shows how handsy we were on the defensive end, and then we’re executing on the offensive end then. So that really helped us.”
While defense was the motor for the first quarter start, it was junior guard Shay Ciezki who paced the offense. She had 11 first-quarter points — finishing with 17 for the afternoon — and hit all three of her 3s in the first 10 minutes.
Indiana maintained a comfortable lead for the majority of the afternoon but as it expected, a run late in the third quarter that bled into the fourth quarter was coming. A 13-point lead with 7:07 remaining in the third quarter got as low as five before IU wing Yarden Garzon nailed a massive three on the wing to give the Hoosiers an eight-point lead entering the fourth quarter.
With little separation to begin the final quarter, IU women’s basketball used a 13-0 run to put the game away — once again, sparked by its defense, and some big time shot-making.
“In those moments, you have to have a lot of guts to be able to take big shots, especially when teams start coming back and catching up,” IU head coach Teri Moren said. “You only maybe have that five-point lead or ten-point lead. It’s like you want to keep building it, but you have to have the players to be able to stick shots when needed.”
“When we saw that they kind of took a step back in the fourth quarter, we started running even harder and started getting downhill and started to get to the free-throw line,” Parrish added. “I think that was what we kept saying when we got in the middle of huddles. We need to keep running on them, don’t let them get back in it.”
Garzon, who had 13 points in the second half, led the Hoosiers with a team-high 18 points and four made 3s. Ciezki followed with 17. In total four Hoosiers were in double-figures — all upperclassmen. Chloe Moore-McNeil finished with 13 points, five assists and three steals, while Sydney Parrish added 10 points, six rebounds and four assists.
