After missing one game with a back injury and coming back ineffective in the next, Nathalie Fontaine had a career night for Ball State.
She scored 20 points and grabbed seven rebounds, leading Ball State to a 73-50 blowout win over Western Michigan.
“I think she did a really good job of understanding that their posts were in foul trouble, and she kinda got the feel that they weren’t going to be a whole lot of resistance once they got into foul trouble,” Ball State coach Brady Sallee said.
Western Michigan’s two starting forwards, Marquisha Harris and Miracle Woods, were in trouble with fouls early and ended with three and four respectively.
Of Fontaine’s seven rebounds, two were offensive.
“She just did a good job of using her weight and athleticism to score,” Sallee said, “She got some transition buckets and ended up having a pretty efficient night.”
She scored her points on 9-of-11 shooting, adding two points from the free-throw line.
Also adding to Ball State’s scoring outburst was sophomore guard Shelbie Justice.
Justice scored a career-high 20 points on 6-of-9 shooting. She also hit four 3-pointers.
Sallee somewhat credited his motion system for Justice’s explosion of scoring.
She was just the recipient of good ball movement, and she happened to be at the right place at the right time,” Sallee said. “A couple transitions. In our motion, we were setting pretty good screens and we had pretty good action going on. She cut hard off the screens. She got some big-time looks. She was definitely shooting it well tonight.”
Sallee said his team will come back to Muncie before travelling back to Michigan. Ball State will play Eastern Michigan on Sunday.
Ball State held Western Michigan to just 29.3 percent shooting, and shot over 49 percent itself.
The Cardinals also held the Broncos to 9-of-27 from long distance.
