Nov. 17, 2006
IOWA CITY — The nationally ranked University of Iowa women’s basketball team rode the hot hands of Megan Skouby on the inside and Wendy Ausdemore on the perimeter to a harder-than-the-score-indicates 93-77 victory over Quinnipiac in first round action of the 2006 KCRG-TV9 Hawkeye Invitational Friday night in Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
Coach Lisa Bluder’s squad will square off against Florida International in the championship game of the two-day, four-team tournament. Tip-off of that contest is set for approximately 7:35 p.m.
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Forward Wendy Ausdemore was white hot for Iowa Friday night. The sophomore from Neola sank eight of her 12 field goal attempts — a total that included five from three-point range.
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Skouby scored 22 points and Ausdemore a game-high 23 to lead the Hawkeyes to their second win at home in three nights. Bluder’s Bunch also got 16 points from Stacy Schlapkohl and 12 more from Lindsey Nyenhuis. And, for the fourth straight game, Jenee Graham reached double-digits on the boards, grabbing 10 against against the Bobcats to go along with seven assists.
Iowa shot a solid 56 percent from the field – a mark that included a blistering 69 percent success rate from behind the arc. Ausdemore was particularly deadly from the field. The forward knocked down eight of 12 field goal attempts including five of seven three-point attempts. Skouby was good on eight of 14 field goal attempts and six of 10 attempts from the charity stripe.
“I was just happy to see them go down because the last couple games I haven’t been doing as well,” said Ausdemore, a sophomore forward from Neola, Iowa.
“Obviously we shot the ball very well and we found the open person with the high assist numbers tonight,” said Bluder. “It was a great shooting night especially from 3-point range; when you shoot better from 3-point range than you do from the free throw line, that’s a very good shooting night.”
The Hawkeyes were credited with a whopping 29 assists, outrebounded the visitors, and forced 19 turnovers.
However, as dominating as Iowa was statistically, it wasn’t until Ausdemore gave Iowa a six-point lead when she sank a jumper with a little more than 16 minutes to play that the home team felt in command. That bucket gave Iowa its largest lead of the game at 55-49. A lay-up by Schlapkohl a little more than a minute later stretched the Hawkeyes’ lead to 10.
And, while the visiting team did make a couple runs at Iowa – once trimming the lead to four – Iowa never flinched and slowly but surely secured the victory, it fourth in as many outings in 2006-07.