The UNI Women’s basketball team has battled adversity all year and things became even more difficult on Monday night when the Panthers welcomed former MVC rival Creighton, now in the Big East, to the McLeod Center. With three of their five returning starters injured, the Panthers fell to the Jays 58-56.
In her second career start of the season, freshman guard Ellie Herzberg scored 13 of her game-high 17 points come in the first half, passing her career high of 10 points less than eight minutes into the affair. Not only was she scoring on offense, but she was passing as well, generating three assists. Herzberg also got it done on the defensive end of the floor, snatching up a game high three steals, a rejection, and pulling down four rebounds as well.
“It was a little nerve-racking… felt natural once the game got doing,” Herzberg said.
The Panthers dominated the first half in every facet, building up a 16 point, 36-20 lead. However, adversity struck UNI once again. With a minute left in the first half, all-conference forward Jen Keitel went down with what appeared to be a knee injury.
With Keitel out, Creighton began to take advantage of mismatches and overwhelmed UNI in the paint and on the glass. The Bluejays had 10 second chance points and outscored UNI 24-4 in the paint in the second half.
Herzberg was not able to get going either, only adding four more points.
UNI kept battling and kept extending their lead off of timely 3-pointers, but Creighton cracked down defensively, and held UNI scoreless for the final 4:10 of the game.
Creighton finally took their first and only lead with under a minute to go, 58-56, and that score stood.
“This is a tough one to swallow,” Warren said. “We are bending, but we are not going to break. Breaking is not an option in this program.”
Herzberg was joined by sole-remaining starter Brooke Brown’s four-of-six performance from downtown, adding 12 points. The Jays were paced with 14 points from Sydney Lamberty.
UNI falls to 1-7, and hopes to end their skid when they welcome North Dakota State to town tonight at 7 p.m..
