In a game in which the Terrapins women’s basketball team scored the first 14 points and held a 20-point lead after the first quarter, coach Brenda Frese found herself calling a 30-second timeout with the Terps locked in a tight road game with Northwestern on Sunday afternoon.
The veteran coach’s decision came moments after forward Pallas Kunaiyi-Akpanah converted a layup with 5:34 left, trimming the Terps’ lead to five. The game hadn’t been that close since Frese’s bunch went up 4-0 just 94 seconds into the contest.
But the Northwestern faithful at Welsh-Ryan Arena wouldn’t see their team come any closer to pulling a significant upset. The Terps, en route to a 79-70 victory, scored the first six points out of the timeout. Several players then knocked down free throws in the final minutes to hold off the surging Wildcats.
“Proud of our execution late,” Frese said. “We had some uncharacteristic turnovers and plays, and I thought we fought through some great toughness, adversity down the stretch to be able to put it away.”
The Terps committed 24 turnovers, their second-highest mark of the season, and allowed Northwestern to grab 17 offensive rebounds. But their 25 points off the bench and their ability to limit the Wildcats to 34.3 percent shooting helped them stay ahead entering the final stretch.
From there, the Terps turned to center Brionna Jones, who was plagued by foul trouble the previous two quarters.
Jones, the team’s second leading scorer at 15.0 points per game, scored six points and grabbed three boards in the opening 10 minutes. But Jones sat the final 2 minutes and 34 seconds of the first half after picking up her second foul, and she was limited in the third quarter with three fouls. She scored four points during that stretch.
So out of the 30-second timeout midway through the fourth quarter, the Terps’ first three trips down the floor resulted in Jones getting a shot in close. She made two of the layups, with the latter pushing the Terps’ lead out to seven.
Jones finished with 14 points on 7-for-8 shooting, yet Frese emphasized the need for the Terps to find their interior presence more throughout the game.
“She’s got to be allowed to be in the game,” Frese said. “Three of her five turnovers were offensive charges, so when she’s not allowed to be in the game, that limits her ability to be able to get those kind of touches.”
Forward Tierney Pfirman followed Jones’ offensive spurt with a mid-range jumper, two of her 15 points on the night, to give the Terps a nine-point lead with 3:39 to go. It marked the team’s last field goal of the contest.
Nevertheless, Terps made several clutch free throws down the stretch to match Northwestern the rest of the way.
A little more than a week after they made 26 of their 36 free throws in a win over then-No. 17 Michigan State, the Terps went 8-for-12 from the line in the final minutes to close out the Wildcats. It marked the third time in four games that the Terps, who average 17.5 foul shots per contests, eclipsed 21 or more attempts from the line.
Getting to the line has been crucial for the Terps this season, as they have combined to attempt just 29 foul shots in their three losses this season.
Sunday, their success at the charity stripe late paired with Jones’ play out of the timeout, helped the Terps avoid a monumental collapse.
“This is not an easy place to play in,” guard Shatori Walker-Kimbrough said. “Any win on the road in conference play is a good win, and I’m glad that we pulled out this win coming together ’cause it wasn’t easy.”
