Second Half Rally Downs Kansas against No. 24 Iowa State, 72-36
March 1, 2011
Box Score in PDF Format
AMES, Iowa – Kansas women’s basketball was paced by Monica Engelman’s 13 points Tuesday night in at Ames’ Hilton Colieum, but No. 24 Iowa State dominated the second half to pull away from the Jayhawks for a 72-36 win.
The Cyclones snapped KU’s three-game win streak, denying the Jayhawks of their 20th win of the season. KU is now 19-10 overall and 6-9 in the Big 12 Conference going into the final weekend of the regular season. ISU moved to 21-8 on the season and 9-7 in conference play.
Engelman’s 13 points was supplemented by six from Carolyn Davis and five each coming from Krysten Boogaard and Tania Jackson. Boogaard led KU with six rebounds.
ISU senior guard Kelsey Bolte led the Cyclones with 17 points in her final game at the Hilton Coliseum. Chelsea Poppins and Amanda Zimmerman balanced out the offense with 13 and 11 points each.
Trailing by just five points coming into the second half, the Jayhawks were ultimately downed by an Iowa State offense that went on a second half tear. Kansas was outscored 47-16 in the period, while the Cyclones shot 64.3 percent from the field. The Jayhawks finished the contest with a .296 shooting clip, which was their first sub-.400 performance since shooting 39.6 percent at Missouri, Jan. 26.
The Jayhawks hung close during the opening minutes of the game but the Cyclones quickly put together an 8-2 run that gave them a 14-7 lead. The lead was cut to 14-9 when Boogaard caught a smooth no-look pass from Angel Goodrich under the basket and put it in for an easy layup. But Iowa State used another 5-0 run to go up by 10, 19-9.
Engelman stopped the rally when she hit jumper just before a timeout at 7:49, and a Boogaard free throw brought Kansas up to 19-12. After Jessica Scholl scored from short range for the Cyclones, Goodrich led the Jayhawks on a run of their own, cutting the deficit to just three, 23-20, with just under four minutes left in the frame.
ISU closed out the half with two free throws, leaving the Jayhawks back 25-20 at the intermission.
The second half began much the way the first did, with Kansas hanging close until a big Iowa State run.
Two layups by Marisha Brown and Davis were broken up by a Bolte three, bringing KU to within two possessions, at 24-28. The Jayhawks were down by only three a few minutes later, but the Cyclones scored 10 unanswered points over the next three minutes to go up 40-27.
But down the stretch the Cyclones couldn’t miss, and the hot shooting keyed the decisive rally that put the Jayhawks away.
KU will play its regular season finale Saturday night against instate rival Kansas State. The second installment of the Sunflower Showdown will tip off at 6:30 p.m., at Allen Fieldhouse.
