The Butler women’s basketball team heated up late Dec. 4th to burn down the Sycamores from Indiana State.
The Bulldogs (4-4) started slowly and trailed by 16 points early on, but head coach Beth Couture calmed her team down and allowed them to refocus.
“Heading into the locker room, I was confident knowing my team’s ability to come back.” Couture said. “They (ISU) pressed early, we knew we couldn’t do that if we wanted to stay energized throughout the entire game.”
Butler used full-court pressure to erase the lead, and senior guard Brittany Bowen and senior guard Alyssa Pittman put on a scoring clinic to turn the game around.
Bowen scored a career-high 30 points, leading a surging pack of Bulldogs to an 81-72 victory.
Bowen, who is averaging 19.0 points and 7.0 rebounds over the last four games, shot 10-for-15 from the floor with three 3-pointers.
Bowen also had 10 rebounds for her third career double-double.
Pittman finished with 22 points. She converted seven of her eight field goal attempts, including four from three-point range.
Butler trailed 45-29 with 19 minutes remaining before dominating the rest of the game. The Bulldogs went on a 39-15 run in 13 minutes to take a 68-60 lead.
The Dawgs then extended their lead to 73-60 with just over three minutes left to play with a free throw by sophomore guard Claire Freeman.
Bowen attributed her success to the momentum her team’s defensive efforts provided her.
“Starting the second half, I felt our defense was the key to bringing the momentum to our side,” she said. “The effective team work and energy we had out there allowed everyone to walk away with a success.”
Shannon Thomas led the Sycamores with 24 points, but her efforts could not overcome Indiana State’s 33 percent shooting in the second half.
“I’m really proud of the girls because this was a game where it would’ve been easy to lose moral and give up,” Couture said. “ISU is well-coached and dictated things in the first half, but we battled back and dictated like we should in the second half.”
