Casse Mogan looks for an opening against Kentucky State.
Box score
HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, Ky. –
Casse Mogan scored a game-high 17 points as the Northern Kentucky University women's basketball team posted a 66-62 win against Kentucky State on Saturday.
Mogan also grabbed five rebounds and was 9-for-10 from the free-throw line. NKU (2-0) built a 16-point lead in the second half and held off a late Kentucky State (0-2) rally to escape with the victory.
Jessie Carmack scored nine of her 13 points in the first half as NKU forged a 32-22 lead at intermission. Carmack buried a trio of 3-pointers in the opening five minutes as the Norse built a 13-2 lead.
“I was happy that we were up 10 at the half, but I thought we could have been up a little bit more if we had made some foul shots,” NKU head coach Nancy Winstel said. “In the second half, we came out and battled, but we gave up way, way, way too many offensive rebounds. We've just got to take pride in putting a body on people. I've got some tall, skinny kids in there, but they've got to get tougher. And they've got to get tougher fast.
“A win is a win. All wins are good wins, but there are little things that we have to do better consistently. With a couple players out due to injuries, our depth isn't as good as we'd like it to be.”
NKU owned a 58-42 lead with 6:33 remaining in the game, but Kentucky State used a 10-0 run to slice the Norse advantage to 58-52 with 4:47 left on the clock. Mogan made six free throws during the next three minutes as NKU extended its lead to 66-55 with 1:50 remaining.
Kentucky State responded with a 7-0 run that cut the NKU lead to 66-62 when Latrice Watkins made two free throws with 35 seconds remaining. The Thorobrettes had two more shots in the final 11 seconds, but both attempts were off target.
Kentucky State finished 16-for-35 from the free-throw line and shot 36.7 percent from the field. The Thorobrettes won the rebounding battle by a 49-44 margin.
NKU also made 36.7 percent of its shots from the field and committed 21 turnovers.
Whitney Levering scored nine points and grabbed eight rebounds for NKU, while teammate
Stephanie Hodges added nine points and seven rebounds.
“We knew coming in that Kentucky State was extremely quick, and that they can shoot the jump shot or they could take us one-on-one,” Carmack said. “We worked hard on just trying to keep them in front of us – if they shot a jumper at least contest it. We wanted to try to keep them from getting to the basket. It the beginning of the game we struggled with it, but I thought we did a good job on coming together on help-side defense and picking up charges.”
NKU plays host to Georgetown (Ky.) at 7 p.m. Tuesday in The Bank of Kentucky Center.
