Arizona defeats Northwestern to win WNIT

Three years make all the difference. When Adia Barnes returned to coach her alma mater, the team was lucky to draw 800 people. Last year, they won six games. On Saturday, a sell-out crowd of 14,644 fans filled McKale Center to watch the Arizona Wildcats compete for the WNIT Championship...and win.

In a game that was sloppy at times, the home Wildcats dominated the visiting Northwestern Wildcats in a 56-42 victory.

Aari McDonald led all scorers with 19. She added seven rebounds and two assists. Cate Reese had 13 points and 9 rebounds. Tee Tee Starks also put up double-digit points with 12 points on 5 -for-7 shooting, and added five rebounds and an assist.

The game looked like it would be a tight match between two fairly evenly-matched teams. Despite shooting only 23.5 percent, Northwestern kept Arizona within their sites, largely because the UA Wildcats couldn’t protect the ball. When the first 10 minutes ended, the visitors were trailing by only four points.

The problem for the NU Wildcats was that two of their top three scorers couldn’t buy a bucket. Lindsey Pulliam, Pallas Kunaiyi-Akpanah and Abi Scheid average in double digits. Scheid is one of only two players who have shot over 100 3-pointers this season, and she made 38.2 percent of them. For Kunaiyi-Akpanah and Scheid, Saturday was a different story.

Against Arizona, only Pulliam was able to get her shot to fall. Kunaiyi-Akpanah didn’t score at all until she hit two free throws in the third quarter. Scheid finally hit a layup at the 7:45 mark in the fourth.

Veronica Burton stepped up and tried to fill the void for Northwestern. Although she averaged only 8.4 ppg over the season, Burton put her mark on the championship game, scoring 16 to lead her team.

This story will be updated.

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