{"id":444417,"date":"2026-01-29T04:56:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T04:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/444417\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T04:56:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T04:56:13","slug":"womens-basketball-scrapes-out-road-win-at-central-michigan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/444417\/","title":{"rendered":"Women\u2019s Basketball Scrapes Out Road Win at Central Michigan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. &#8211; The Ball State women&#8217;s basketball team defeated Central Michigan 76-70 in a closely contested midweek Mid-American Conference matchup Wednesday night at McGuirk Arena.\u00a0<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nThe Cardinals improved their season record to 16-5 (8-1 MAC), while the Chippewas fell to 12-7 (6-3 MAC). Ball State led at the end of each quarter tonight despite both teams fighting hard in a physical battle which saw three Cardinals and four Chippewas foul out of the contest in the final frame.\u00a0<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nThe opening quarter was characterized by scrappy defense from both sides, ending in a low-scoring tie of 10-10 after the first five minutes and finishing with Ball State up 13-12 after the first quarter.\u00a0<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nBall State created more shot opportunities due to the forced turnovers, shooting a better percentage from the field in the first half. The Cardinals strong interior play and ability to get second-chance points from both <a href=\"https:\/\/ballstatesports.com\/sports\/womens-basketball\/roster\/tessa-towers\/13017\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"13017\" target=\"_blank\">Tessa Towers<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/ballstatesports.com\/sports\/womens-basketball\/roster\/bree-salenbien\/13019\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"13019\" target=\"_blank\">Bree Salenbien<\/a> allowed Ball State to maintain a slight 31-20 edge over Central Michigan at intermission.\u00a0<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nAfter the break, <a href=\"https:\/\/ballstatesports.com\/sports\/womens-basketball\/roster\/grace-kingery\/13015\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"13015\" target=\"_blank\">Grace Kingery<\/a> came to the rescue scoring nine points after shooting 2-of-3 from the 3-point line and a perfect 3-of-3 from the charity stripe which helped the Cardinals stay atop of the Chippewas at the end of the third quarter, 61-55.\u00a0<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nIn the final frame, Ball State&#8217;s defense and efficiency at the charity stripe proved to be the deciding factor as the Cardinals survived a late push by the Chippewas after BSU shot 9-of-16 from the free throw line to seal tonight&#8217;s six-point victory.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nThe Cardinals had five players reach double figures tonight which was led by <a href=\"https:\/\/ballstatesports.com\/sports\/womens-basketball\/roster\/karsyn-norman\/13020\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"13020\" target=\"_blank\">Karsyn Norman<\/a> with 17 points. Behind Norman was Towers who finished the night with 15 points. Kingery, Salenbien and <a href=\"https:\/\/ballstatesports.com\/sports\/womens-basketball\/roster\/aniss-tagayi\/13023\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"13023\" target=\"_blank\">Aniss Tagayi<\/a> all chipped in 12 points apiece. Salenbien pulled down 12 rebounds for her fourth double-double of the season.\u00a0<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nThe Ball State women&#8217;s basketball team continues its two-game road swing when it plays at Kent State on Sunday. Tipoff is set for noon and will be televised on the CBS Sports Network.<br \/>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. &#8211; The Ball State women&#8217;s basketball team defeated Central Michigan 76-70 in a closely contested&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-444417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}