NIU Travels To Bowling Green For Saturday Night Showdown

January 17, 2025
|In Local Highlights, NIU Sports
|By Peyton

The Northern Illinois University women’s basketball team heads out this weekend to face the Bowling Green Falcons Saturday night at Stroh Center. Tip-off is at 6 p.m. CT.

 

Saturday’s game will be telecast on ESPN+ and will also be broadcast on WDKB 94-9, the NIU Huskies app and TuneIn.

 

NIU (7-9, 1-4) had three players score in double figures Wednesday night against Miami at the NIU Convocation Center. Sixth-Year guard Chelby Koker (Racine, Wis./Shoreland Lutheran) led the Huskies with 14 points, adding five rebounds and four assists. She has had at least four assists in each of the last nine games. Koker has 383 assists in her NIU career which puts her sixth all-time in program history. She is also NIU’s career leader in free throw percentage at 85.6 percent.

 

The Huskies’ starting frontcourt of Brooke Stonebraker (Versailles, Ohio/Versailles) and Brooke Blumenfeld (Northbrook, Ill./Glenbrook North) each scored in double figures against Miami. Blumenfeld had 12 points on 6-of-13 shooting from the field. The redshirt-sophomore is averaging 11.4 points per game in Mid-American Conference play on 52.8 percent shooting from the field. Stonebraker had 11 points and eight rebounds against Miami, her 14th game this season with at least five rebounds. The duo has each scored 10 points in the same game 10 times over the last two seasons.

 

Bowling Green (8-8, 2-3 MAC) enters Saturday’s game on the heels of a 74-53 win at Ohio Wednesday night. The Falcons shot 49.1 percent from the field and had 23 assists on 26 made baskets. Lexi Fleming led Bowling Green with 19 points as Paige Kohler added 18 points and a game-high eight assists. Senior guard Amy Velasco leads Bowling Green with.16.8 points per game.

 

The Falcons lead the all-time series against NIU 29-21. NIU’s last win in the series came on Feb. 15, 2023 in an 85-81 win at Stroh Center. The Huskies made 13 three-pointers in the game and shot 53.8 percent from the field as head coach Lisa Carlsen earned her 300th career win. Koker led all scorers with 18 points as A’Jah Davis had 16 points and 16 rebounds.

 

NIU is back on the road on Wednesday, Jan. 22 for a matchup at Eastern Michigann at 5:30 p.m. CT.