University of St. Thomas Athletics
0-2,0-0Summit League
Illinois State
1-1,0-0MVC
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | F |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Illinois St. | 16 | 12 | 18 | 24 | 70 |
| St. Thomas (MN) | 6 | 14 | 13 | 22 | 55 |
Redbirds spoil Women's Hoops home D-I debut with 70-55 win
11/13/2021 3:34:00 PM | Women's Basketball
The non-conference women's basketball contest at Schoenecker Arena was St. Thomas' first home Division I game and second overall test in its new division. St. Thomas fell at Wisconsin by 17 points three days earlier.
The Redbirds (1-1), who never trailed, shot 57 percent from the floor and outrebounded the Tommies by a 24-15 margin. Illinois State also recorded a 22-7 advantage in bench points.
Freshman guard Jade Hill scored a team-best 12 points and added five assists for St. Thomas (0-2), which shot just 39 percent from the field. Kate Burns chipped in 11 points, and Kaia Porter and Erin Norling each scored 10 points.
The Toms fell behind 10-0 in the opening minutes before gradually pulling within 28-20 at halftime. The Purple pulled within a 34-30 deficit early in the third quarter but the Redbirds used a 12-3 over the last 6:30 of the third quarter to build the lead to 46-33. The Toms never got closer than 14 points in the final period.
Tommie coach Ruth Sinn was able to use 12 players and sai her team showed "glimpses" of its potential. The coach recognized that her players tried to play catch up most of the day against an experienced, athletic Redbird team.
"It's a process," Sinn explained. "This is the first time we get to do this, and there will be a lot of learning. We understand what we want to do and the identity we want to play to, and obviously the reason that we play games is to be tested and to make sure that we can kind of stay to our identity. There were times where we were locked in on our identity defensively and then moving to the offensive (end). And then there were other times that we had lapses. It's a learning opportunity. We're a young group, and we're just trying to get the pieces where we have enough cohesion and enough trust. We're proud of them. Real proud of them. You saw glimpses.
"Give Illinois State a lot of credit because its a very athletic team. They know their identity, very senior based. You know doing this (move into D-I) wasn't the best idea to do it in a post-COVID (eligibility) year then we will be playing everybody's super seniors. And we have all the young ones. But that's going to be a great, great challenge for us. We say this all the time that if it doesn't challenge you it won't change you. We want to grow. So I think from our Wisconsin game (three days ago) to this game there was great learning. We just have to continue to build on that identity and understand that."
