The University of Toledo women’s basketball team celebrated Senior Day with a 64-53 win over Northern Illinois Saturday afternoon at Savage Arena.
Senior Kaayla McIntyre fittingly led the way for Toledo (18-9, 10-6 MAC) with 22 points and 13 rebounds in her final regular season home game.
“Surprisingly I wasn’t too emotional,” McIntyre said. “I think we did a good job as a senior class and even my other teammates of just getting the job done today. I think we prepared well and we were able to execute well and get the win.”
Nakiah Black added 12 points and senior Mikaela Boyd tallied 10 points and grabbed nine rebounds.
Mikayla Voigt led the Huskies (17-11, 9-7 MAC) with 19 points and Gabby Nikitinaite had 11.
“I thought we made her really work for the shots she got,” Toledo coach Tricia Cullop said of Voigt, NIU’s star player. “You certainly can’t put a hand down. If she fakes a drive and pulls back up and your hands aren’t up, she’s going to shoot it and nine times out of 10 she’s going to make it. She really is a handful. I thought our players did a good job of keeping her in front and making her work for all of her shots. I think we wore her out a little bit.”
With the score tied at 41 with 3:06 left in the third quarter, Toledo utilized a game-changing 16-3 run that spanned the end of the third and beginning of the fourth quarter.
During the run, Boyd hit a jumper, Sara Rokkanen followed with two 3-pointers, Black notched five points, and McIntyre added three.
By the time the dust was settled on the Toledo spurt, the Rockets had a 57-44 lead with 6:28 left.
“We were much more patient offensively in the second half,” Cullop said. “We made the extra pass and knocked down shots. We had 12 assists on 14 baskets over the final 20 minutes, and I thought that was the difference.”
Toledo avenged a 54-52 loss to NIU in DeKalb on Feb. 16 and got another home win for its four seniors – McIntyre, Boyd, Sarah St-Fort, and Mae Tshitenge.
“I’m really proud of our whole team,” Cullop said. “Our seniors gave us a lot of energy, but I think the whole team really wanted to win this for them.”
First Published March 3, 2019, 2:30 a.m.
