Marquette Women’s Basketball Bounces Back With A Win Over Pacific

After suffering their first loss of the season on Friday night, Marquette women’s basketball bounced back less than 24 hours later with an 89-75 victory over Pacific on Saturday.

The Golden Eagles are now 5-1 on the season and 2-1 this week after appearing on seven Associated Press ballots last Monday. MU picked up another win over a ranked team on Tuesday, but that is balanced out by a loss to Santa Clara on Friday. We’ll have to wait to see how the voters deal with that dichotomy, but I wouldn’t expect to see the Golden Eagles improve on their standing all that much, if at all.

If you like watching rebounding, this was probably the game for you. Thanks to Pacific shooting just 33% in the game, the two teams combined to grab up 81 rebounds. One of the things helping boost their number of misses was the Tigers snatching 21 of their misses in order to get another shot attempt up. Two different Golden Eagles posted double digit rebounds, and shocker of shockers, both Natisha Hiedeman (13 points, 11 rebounds) and Erika Davenport both posted double-doubles in the game. It’s the sixth straight game this season with a double-double from Davenport (14 points, 10 rebounds), and if you’re paying attention, you’ve already realized that means she has a double-double in every game this season.

This game was pretty much wrapped up after the first 20 minutes. Marquette opened up a 23-16 lead in the first 10 minutes, largely powered by the Golden Eagles making 10 of their 13 shots. Things tilted even further in MU’s favor in the second quarter when they outscored the Tigers 21-11, led by seven points from Allazia Blockton. That had Marquette up 44-27 at the half, and things were pretty much in hand at that point.

Pacific clawed three points back over the 10 minutes of the third quarter and played Marquette even in the fourth quarter, but on some level, none of this has anything to do with Marquette was doing. Because this was their second game in 24 hours and Marquette was comfortably ahead, head coach Carolyn Kieger dove deep into her bench in the second half. The combination of Sandra Dahling, Olivia Moskari, Altia Anderson, Isabelle Spingola, Meghan Mandel, and Chelsey Gibson played 26 of MU’s 100 total player minutes in the second half as Kieger gave her core rotation some time off and gave her little used bench some game time. It was actually Gibson’s Marquette debut after suffering a season ending knee injury before last season even got started, and she recorded five points, two rebounds, and a steal in her six minutes of fourth quarter action.

Up Next: Marquette will get some time off after playing three games in five days. They’ll be off until Friday when they host Western Illinois (3-1) at the McGuire Center.