Gophers women’s basketball ends two losing streaks with victory over Indiana

With 16 seconds left in Sunday’s game, with the Gophers women’s basketball team about to break a three-game losing streak, junior point guard Amaya Battle made two free throws.

A victory. A milestone. A memorable day at Williams Arena.

In order: The Gophers, playing defense from start to finish, beat Indiana 66-56. It was a much-needed victory over a Hoosiers team they hadn’t beaten in six years.

For Battle? Her game-high 16 points — eight in the fourth quarter, six of those from the free-throw line — pushed her career scoring total to 1,001 points.

Of course, being the ultimate example of a player who exists in the moment, Battle didn’t even know it. At least not until those final 16 seconds had expired.

“After the game we were all huddled and cheering together,” said Battle, the 28th player in program history to surpass 1,000 career points. “I’m thinking, ‘Oh, we’re cheering that we won the game, we’re out of that three-game stretch.’ And then Nia [Holloway] said, ‘You know why we’re cheering, don’t you? You have 1,000 points!’ And I was like, ‘Cool.’”

It was a beautiful way to end a game that might not have been the most aesthetically pleasing.

The Gophers (19-6, 7-6 Big Ten) turned the ball over a bit and went cold as ice down the stretch, going the final eight-plus minutes without a field goal.

But really, so what?

“Any time you lose, you want to bounce back,” Battle said. “So the fact we bounced back today means we can keep moving forward now.”

Battle was a huge reason the Gophers remain in a three-way tie for 10th place in the 18-team Big Ten.

She made five of 11 shots, with five assists and seven rebounds despite battling foul trouble.

“Again she played at an incredibly high level and she was in foul trouble,” coach Dawn Plitzuweit said. “Amaya got rebounds. The ball was in her hands — or we found her quickly — and she capitalized.”

The Gophers scored 30 points in the paint and had a 43-25 edge on rebounds. Center Sophie Hart scored 14 with eight rebounds. Mallory Heyer had 10 points and 13 boards, her second consecutive double-double and fourth of the season. Up 50-41 after three quarters, Hart had six points in an 8-2 start to the fourth quarter — Battle had the other two on a drive — that put the Gophers up 58-43 on Hart’s two free throws with 7:29 left.

Then, for nearly six minutes, the Gophers did not score.

But really, so what?

Indiana shot 37.5% while being held 14 points under its scoring average. The No. 1 team in the Big Ten in three-point shooting, Indiana went 7-for-22 from behind the arc. Leading Hoosiers scorer Yarden Garzon — who was hitting better than 41% on threes — scored six points, her second-lowest total of the season. She went 2-for-9 overall, 1-for-4 on threes.

“I just want to give a shoutout to our guards, they stepped up to the challenge,” Hart said. “Because, I mean, [the Hoosiers] are a great shooting team that can attack in multiple different ways. They just did a phenomenal job.”

Battle did, on both ends. The Gophers’ 15-point lead was down to six when Battle was fouled and went to the line with 1:32 left. She made both free throws, pushing the lead back to 60-52 and her career total to 997. She made a free throw with 44 seconds left, another 10 seconds later. And then, with 16 seconds left, two more.

That put her at 1,001.

“What’s really cool is how excited her teammates were,” Plitzuweit said. “It’s a great milestone, but what made it super-exciting is the way the team celebrated.”

After the team had stepped down from the arena’s elevated floor and gone into the locker room, they all grabbed water bottles and sprayed Battle with them.

“I was like, ‘Guys, I don’t want to get soaked,’” she said. “But it was fun. I don’t know everyone who is on that list, but it’s got to be some pretty good company.”