In a game where the Ball State women's basketball team was pressured all night, the Cardinals were able to pull away a 76-54 victory over Eastern Michigan.
Throughout the game, Eastern Michigan was high-paced, sprinting down the court for quick passes on offense while creating double teams on defense.
Ball State head coach Brady Sallee said execution had more of an emphasis to prepare his team for the aggressive opponent.
“We worked probably a little bit more on execution than we normally do to get ready,” Sallee said. “A lot of the execution work we did was to get us ready to play through whatever.”
Despite the constant full-court press and double teams, Ball State was able to shoot 45.9 percent from the field and 39.1 percent from behind the 3-point line. Seven of the team's nine total 3-pointers came from senior guard Jill Morrison.
Morrison would finish with 21 total points, all of which came from behind the arc. On top of her 53.8 shooting percentage, she had six rebounds and two steals in her 37 minutes of play.
This performance came after a game where she shot 4-12 from the floor against Bowling Green University on Jan. 16.
In both of those games, she only shot 3-pointers.
“Being a 3-point shooter, ... that's my job,” Morrison said. “When I'm getting other people the ball and they're scoring baskets off my passes, that just feels really good to me.”
Morrison was able to find her teammates on go-ahead scores multiple times throughout the night, finishing with seven assists.
Ball State's defense was the difference-maker when it came down to avoiding the same result as last season, where the Eagles knocked off the Cardinals in the Mid-American Conference semifinal game.
The Cardinals were able to finish with 44 rebounds — 10 more than the Eagles — and held the second-highest scoring offense to 20 points below its average.
Eastern Michigan's Cha Sweeney came in averaging just under 19 points per game but was held to 2 points, shooting 1-13 including 1-7 from behind the arc.
Though this is the second lowest Sweeney has been held to all year, Sallee doesn't want to take much of the credit for her performance.
“All players go through funks; I think [Sweeney] is in one now,” Sallee said. “I hate to see the team that she does get it figured out against because she's probably going to take it out on them.”
Senior guard Nathalie Fontaine was happy with the way the defense stepped up to seal the win.
“I think we came out in the second half and did a better job defending their dribble-drives,” Fontaine said. “We knew defense was going to be a big key to this game [as well as] defensive rebounding.”
Fontaine quietly put up 27 points on the night, moving her into sole possession of second place for Ball State's all-time scoring leader.
Ball State travels to Western Michigan with a 13-4 record including an undefeated 9-0 at home on Jan 23. Western Michigan is sitting at 12-6 with a three-game win streak.
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