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Saturday, Jan. 15 3:00pm ET
Welle scores career-high 20 | |||||
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RECAP
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BOX SCORE
AMES, Iowa (AP) -- Big runs have become a part of Iowa State's game, and the Cyclones (No. 9 ESPN/USA Today, No. 8 AP) put together another one Saturday. Angie Welle scored 20 of her career-high 24 points in the second half and sparked a 24-2 run that carried Iowa State to an 89-66 victory over Nebraska. Iowa State (12-2, 3-0 Big 12) dominated the final 10½ minutes after falling behind and won for the 22nd straight time at home. Stacy Frese added 19 points, Megan Taylor had 17 points and 10 rebounds and Desiree Francis scored 14. "In a 40-minute game, there's 30 minutes you're like sparring with each other, going back and forth," Iowa State coach Bill Fennelly said. "But there's always going to be a spurt for one team or another. "When the other team has theirs, if you can slow it down a little and not let them knock you out, and then when you get yours, that's going to make a difference. Our team has done that a lot, especially at home." Nebraska (7-7, 1-2) stayed close for much of the game with some unusually accurate 3-point shooting and led 56-54 after Charlie Rogers scored inside with 10:54 left. But with Nebraska's 6-foot-5 center, Casey Leonhardt, on the bench with four fouls, Iowa State went inside to Welle and the Cyclones took off, scoring 24 of the next 26 points to take control. "When it got inside of 10 minutes, that's when we need to buckle down and get a defensive stop and we didn't do that," Nebraska's Nicole Kubik said. "That's how you stop their run, with defense. We just couldn't get the stops when we needed them." Kubik led Nebraska with 17 points, Rogers scored 16 and Schwartz had 14. Welle scored eight of the first nine points in a 13-0 run that gave Iowa State a 67-56 lead. After Schwartz scored for Nebraska, Iowa State ran off 11 straight to open a 78-58 lead, Taylor finishing the run when she followed her shot after missing badly on a 3-point attempt and made a layup with 4:03 left. The Cyclones could relax after that. When Fennelly pulled Taylor after she threw the ball out of bounds, she playfully tugged his tie as he leaned over to talk to her. Fennelly then put her right back in the game. "I thought Megan played her best game of the season," Fennelly said. "If she keeps playing like that, she can pull my tie anytime she wants." Welle, a 6-4 sophomore whose previous best was 23 points against Creighton in November, was unstoppable once Leonhardt got into foul trouble, making 8-of-9 shots in the second half. "She knew they were in foul trouble and she needed to take it to them," Frese said. "We just kept giving it to her and she was scoring every time. That makes a lot of sense to me." Kubik, who had made just 9-of-46 3-point shots coming in, hit her first four and finished 5-for-8 from behind the arc. Nebraska, forcing Iowa State to work in its zone defense, led by as many as four points in the first half and trailed 33-32 at halftime. The Cornhuskers went up 54-51 on Kubik's 3-pointer with 11:57 to play, but those were her last points and Nebraska's last 3-pointer. "We played with so much poise and confidence for the first 30 minutes," Nebraska coach Paul Sanderford said. "Then we missed a couple of easy shots, we didn't get a break on a call and all of a sudden, we stopped playing to score. "We panicked. We panicked offensively and we panicked defensively. That's been our problem all year." | ALSO SEE Womens College Basketball Scoreboard
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