The Peacock women's basketball team put together a complete effort in Dorman Gym on Saturday and earned their 74-60 victory over the visiting Marauders of the University of Mary. Upper Iowa opened the game with solid play on both offense and defense building an early lead and then expanded on their advantage as the game moved. With the win, UIU snapped a 9-game losing streak to U-Mary and improved to 5-11 overall and 3-9 in the NSIC. The Marauders dropped to 7-10 overall and 5-6 in the conference.
Upper Iowa's offense came out of the gates on fire in Dorman Gymnasium on Saturday led by a quartet of seniors.
Lauren Buck,
Olivia Meier,
Olivia Winkler and
Lindsay Carroll all took their turn marking the scoring column in the first half. The Peacocks jumped out to an early 10-2 lead as their defense held the Marauders to just one basket over the first six and a half minutes of the game. U-Mary closed the gap to three, 13-10, but the home team went on a 15-6 run over the next six minutes to establish a double-digit lead. UIU's offense used a late 8-0 run that spanned two minutes and put the Peacocks ahead 37-19. The final four points of the half came from U-Mary and set the halftime score at 37-23. UIU shot 50% in the first half, while holding their guests to just 27.3% including 1 of 10 shooting from deep.
The Marauders continued where they left off in the final minute with five quick points closing the gap down to nine, 37-28, but Upper Iowa responded with a pair of three-pointers from Carroll and Buck to return their lead to fifteen, 43-28. A pair of trifectas from U-Mary's Hannah Larson once again put the margin in single digits, but UIU answered with a 10-0 run fueled by six points from Buck. Every time that the Marauders seemed to make a run, the home team had an answer with the lead reaching a high of 20 points, 62-42.
After the home team pushed their lead to twenty, U-Mary made one final push in the contest outscoring the Peacocks 16-7 over the final minutes. The Marauders even went on an 8-0 run that closed the gap to a dozen, 62-50, with three minutes to play, but a Buck lay in ended the four-minute Peacock drought with 2:42 on the clock.
U-Mary's Larson led all scorers with 28 points while adding 9 rebounds for the Marauders.
Buck led the Peacocks with 26 points and 15 rebounds for her eleventh double-double of the season. Buck was one of four UIU players in double figures in the scoring column. Carroll dropped in 19 points while Winkler netted 12 and Meier scored 10 for the home team. Winkler added 6 rebounds, while
Aleesha Cleaver handed out 4 assists.
Upper Iowa will head out on the road next Friday and Saturday, Jan. 23-24, to face the Wildcats of Wayne State College in Wayne, Neb. and the Vikings of Augustana College in Sioux Falls, S.D.
