Story By: Erin Zollars
Photos By: Sol Tucker
College Park, MD–
It might be easy to say that Brenda Frese has really turned up the heat on her opponents the past few games, but tonight the game was all but over by halftime in a 96-68 victory over the 6th ranked Hawkeyes.
“We’ve always had just terrific responses that I think continues to show you what makes this team pretty elite,” head coach Brenda Frese said.
Maryland was looking to erase the memories of the 42-point performance by Iowa Junior guard Caitlin Clark back on February 2nd. Tonight, it was just a different Terp team on the court.
Senior guard Lavender Briggs had the assignment of Clark and was excellent, finishing with a season-high 19 points.
“I felt really good during my warmup,” Briggs said. “I was knocking down my shots and I was just really confident and positive going into this game. It feels great to finally have a game like this.”
Maryland entered Tuesday night shooting 35% from the 3-point line but shot 54% from long range with a season-high 14 threes. Meanwhile it was by far the worst offensive showing for Iowa this season. The nation’s leader in points (88.3 per game) scored a season-low on Wednesday night.
Maryland opened the second quarter on a 9-2 run to take a 28-22 lead just before the under-8 minute media timeout. The break did little to help Iowa as the Terrapins exploded for their best shooting performance of the season. Without its best player, Diamond Miller, who sat the majority of the quarter with foul trouble, Maryland shot a blistering 7-of-11 from the 3-point line in the second period.
“We just have a great group here and they understand the assignment these next few weeks. I told them before the game tonight, to forget about what happened on the road last time, they responded well as you can see,” said Frese.
The Terps have one game left in the regular season against Ohio State next week and then it’s on to the Big Ten Tournament, where these two teams could see each other again for a title shot.