The Horizon League’s first-ever semifinal play-in game, at Indianapolis’ Corteva Coliseum on Sunday afternoon, wasn’t much of one. Fueled by second quarter runs of 14-2 and 9-2, Purdue Fort Wayne jumped on the front foot early and never looked back in an 85-49 rout of IU Indianapolis to advance to Monday’s HL final four.
After an even and frantic start to the contest, the Mastodons began to assert themselves late in the first quarter.
“I think [IU Indy] played very aggressive, so that can startle you at first,” PFW guard Destiny Macharia said. “You get panicked, you can rush, but eventually we started to calm down and talk as a team.”
Macharia provided the unofficial lidlifter for what was to follow with a corner three that gave her team the lead – for good, as it turned out – at 11-8, with 1:27 remaining in the opening period. The freshman added two more triples within the next 2:32 of game time, the latter of which expanded the Mastodons’ advantage to 21-12.
“I was waiting for my name to be called, and the whole goal is to just do what I can, shoot,” Macharia said, referencing some hesitation to do so after returning from a late-season concussion. “Just A-plus looks, getting my teammates involved. I wasn’t trying to go 3-for-3 in the first half. I was just trying to do what I can.”
Though Macharia provided much of the early separation, the win was truly a case of “everyone plays, everyone scores.” Hillary Offing led the upstate squad with a backloaded 14 points in just 14 minutes on the floor, while six other players posted at least eight tallies. Much of that production came during a near-perfect second quarter, one that saw PFW shoot more accurately than anything at the Indy 1500 Gun & Blade Show proceeding simultaneously on the Indiana State Fairgrounds.
The Mastodons were 11-for-15 from the floor during the period, including 4-for-4 from three-point range. Those figures helped the tournament’s fifth seed top 60 percent accuracy for most of the game, before falling just shy, 58.6 percent, at the final buzzer.
“I think the best thing about us right now is everyone is scoring at a much better clip than they were early in the season,” Purdue Fort Wayne head coach Maria Marchesano said. “Nobody’s really in a rut right now. We believe in ourselves, but we also believe in each other.”
“We settled in perfectly,” ‘Dons forward Jordan Reid, who finished with 11 points and three assists, added. “It’s great when the ball goes in the hoop, and it’s nice for some of the younger kids, and maybe some of the kids that haven’t been on the floor at this stage to see the ball go in the hoop.”
By halftime, Purdue Fort Wayne held a 39-24 lead. When the Mastodons then scored eight of the third quarter’s first nine points, the only real drama remaining in the affair was a casual flirtation with the Horizon League Tournament’s margin of victory record, set by Green Bay during a 48-point crime scene against Loyola in 2011. However, PFW played the fourth quarter like a team that knows it needs to win two more games in the next two days to take the conference championship, and “settled” for 36 points of separation.
Hailey Smith led IU Indianapolis with 20 points on 6-for-15 shooting, but she was the only Jaguar who managed to find much success against a Mastodon defense that limited Smith’s teammates to just 9-for-42 (21.4 percent) from the floor, while also earning a 41-27 rebounding advantage. Alana Nelson and Lili Krasovec had eight boards each to lead PFW, though much like the ‘Dons’ offensive output, just about everyone played some sort of role.
“I thought we really stuck to our defensive game plan,” Marchesano said. “We contained their drives. We were on time with our help. We took care of rebounding, and I think this time of year, if you contain the ball, you take care of rebounds, and really take care of the ball, you’re going to be in a good spot to win ball games.”
After completing that checklist and securing victory, Purdue Fort Wayne advanced to Monday’s semifinals, where the Mastodons will take on defending conference champion Green Bay.
There’s plenty of familiarity in that situation, given that PFW will now have met the Phoenix during each of its four trips to the final rounds of the HL tournament in Indianapolis since joining the conference. GB won all three of the previous matchups – including last season’s title game – a trend that Marchesano hopes to reverse.
“It’s pretty crazy,” she acknowledged. “Obviously that’s a credit to them. They’re the powerhouse in our league, they’re the standard.”
Fifth time’s the charm? The coach is optimistic, given that the ‘Dons defeated Green Bay just eight days ago to close the regular season, a game where Marchesano felt her team wasn’t in peak form.
“I think the best thing that we have going into tomorrow is we know we didn’t play our best when we beat them,” she said. “We left a lot of points on the table, we had some silly mistakes on defense, but we know this time of year, it’s going to be a battle. It’s going to come down to who makes the least amount of mistakes and it’ll probably go down to the end.”
“That’s just how it always is with us and Green Bay.”
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