Advertisement

Women’s basketball: Fourth-quarter rally lifts Gophers past Eastern Illinois

pioneer press
·1 min read

The Gophers women’s basketball team overcame an eight-point deficit with a big fourth-quarter comeback to beat Eastern Illinois 59-48 on Wednesday afternoon at Williams Arena.

Minnesota outscored Eastern Illinois 23-6 in the final period of the Gophers’ final nonconference game of the season.

Alanna Micheaux scored a game-high 14 points of 6-for-13 shooting and added five rebounds for Minnesota. Mallory Heyer scored all 10 of her points in the second half, plus had seven rebounds. She put the Gophers ahead for good with a three-point shot with 7:07 left in the game.

Minnesota led 27-24 at halftime before Eastern Illinois stole the momentum by outscoring the Gophers 18-9 in the third quarter.

Morgan Litwiller scored 11 points, and Taris Thornton had 10 for Eastern Illinois.

Minnesota (8-5) made 24 of 66 shots (36.4 percent) from the floor for the game but was 14 of 29 (48.3 percent) in the second half. The Gophers closed out the rebound battle with an 8-3 advantage in the fourth quarter, outrebounding Eastern Illinois (8-3) 41-39 overall.

Shimmy Gray-Miller was the Gophers’ acting head coach, filling in for Lindsay Whalen, who was home with an illness.

Minnesota resumes Big Ten play with a Dec. 30 game at Maryland. The Gophers are 1-1 in the conference, beating Penn State at home on Dec. 3 and losing at Iowa on Dec. 10.

Related Articles