Saturday, January 5, 2008

Stout women hold off Platteville

Chalk this one up to the UW-Stout defense.

Facing a must-win situation if they have any illusions of finishing in the thop half of the conference, the Blue Devils turned up the defensive pressure when they had to, held UW-Platteville without a field goal over the final 8 minutes of the game and came away with an 80-68 victory at the Johnson Fieldhouse.

Julia Hirssig, who only played three minutes in the first half, responded in the second by scoring 15 of her team-high 17 points and grabbing 10 of her 11 rebounds to help the Blue Devils pull away. Seven of Hirssig's points came at the free-throw line as she really established herself in the paint during the Blue Devils' decisive run.

UW-Stout won despite turning over the ball 28 times. It helped that it shot 47.3 percent from the floor and held UW-Platteville to just 30 percent.

- John Casper Jr.

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