Illinois State’s Jamie Russell went into the weekend leading her team in scoring, and Ball State made stopping her its goal at Sunday’s game.
Ball State did just that, holding the senior guard to just six points on 2-of-6 shooting.
However, it was all for naught as the Cardinals suffered their fourth straight road loss to the RedBirds, 71-56.
According to Ball State coach Brady Sallee, junior guard Brandy Woody spent most of her time on defense guarding Russell.
“Brandy did a really good job on her,” Sallee said. “She followed the gameplan really well. And a lot of that gameplan was to keep her from going off on us …. It was a game where we did a really good job on their leading scorer to take them out of it, but then tonight some other people got loose on us and you can’t have that happen.”
Illinois State forward Janae Smith got loose on Ball State Sunday afternoon, scoring 22 points and grabbing 11 rebounds for a double-double.
Not only was Woody forced to defend Illinois State’s leading scorer, but she was charged with handling most of Ball State’s scoring load herself.
Woody scored a career-high 18 points on 7-of-14 shooting.
“The kid just competes and plays hard,” Sallee said. “She really set the tone offensively and had some steals and bothered a little bit.”
Sallee praised her for driving the ball into the lane when Illinois State was pressuring her.
Woody also added two steals.
“Overall, a really good performance tonight by her,” Sallee said. “We just needed a few others to go with it.”
The game got away from Ball State as early as halftime, as it went into the half with a 43-28 deficit.
Junior forward Katie Murphy returned from an ankle injury Sunday afternoon after missing one game. Murphy scored five points and corralled a team-high seven rebounds in 26 minutes of play.
“Clearly, she wasn’t playing at 100 percent,” Sallee said. “But just the extra body and the normalcy of our rotation was a good thing. One thing Katie is going to do is battle for you. It was nice having her back in there.”
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