FORT WAYNE, Ind. – Old Dominion women’s basketball and Purdue Fort Wayne were tied at 34-34 at halftime, but a big third quarter by the Mastodons helped them pull away for an 87-61 final on Tuesday night at the Hilliard Gates Sports Center.
The Monarchs see their run in the WNIT come to an end as the team finished the 2024-25 season with an 18-16 record.
Three players finished in double figures for ODU, led by Simari Fields with 15 points on 6-for-18 shooting from the field. She pulled down six boards and added two assists with three steals. Simone Cunningham recorded here 10th double-double of the season with 14 points and 12 rebounds, nine of which were on the offensive end of the court. En’Dya Buford contributed 11 points, four rebounds, two assists and a pair of steals.
The Mastodons (26-8) scored the first six points of the game before Fields put the Monarchs on the board with a pullup jumper. The hosts stretched their lead to 12-4, but a couple of baskets from Buford and a layup by Brenda Fontana narrowed the gap, 12-10. ODU then closed out the opening quarter with a 5-0 run to take over, 17-15. Mariah Clayton went 1-for-2 at the line before Cunningham made a jumper and a layup.
Neither side could hold off the other in the second quarter. ODU went up 28-24 at the 5:03 mark, but a couple of scores by Jazzlyn Linbo allowed Purdue Fort Wayne to regain the lead, 31-30. Fontana knotted the score at 31-31 with a free throw, and Fields then found Buford for a deep ball as the Monarchs pulled ahead, 34-31 with 2:13 on the clock. PFW’s Jordan Reid and Lauren Ross then combined to go 3-for-4 at the line as the teams went into the locker room knotted at 34-34.
Asked what her message to the team at halftime was, ODU Head Coach DeLisha Milton-Jones said, “We told them we are okay, we’re in a good place. We made some mistakes in the first half that are fixable, and then it changed the course of the game the rest of the way.
“But for some reason they just couldn’t get it out of their head. We were nine points down, called another time out to regroup us. ‘It’s okay you guys, we can fix this. We have to execute, get to our defensive spots that we need to be in. Everything will be okay.’ Then it just seemed like we just stayed stuck mentally where we were at, and once they hit a three, it’s like the bottom fell out.”
Purdue Fort Wayne shot just 2-for-7 from the perimeter in the first half, but the Mastodons found the rhythm in the third quarter with six triples. ODU trailed 39-38 with 6:47 to go when four threes highlighted a 14-0 run over three minutes of play. The Mastodons outscored the Monarchs 24-7 in the quarter and took a 58-41 advantage into the final 10 minutes.
“It just seemed like the floodgates opened at that point, and the basket became big, and [Purdue Fort Wayne] got 30 points from the three-point line tonight.”
In the fourth, the home team made 8-of-8 free throws to highlight another 13-0 push that extended their lead, 84-52. Hama’ya Fielder hit a long three, Jadyn Atchison got into the scoring column with a jumper, and Kelsey Thompson got a couple of shots to fall to round out the game.
Purdue Fort Wayne had a balanced attack with five players scoring in double digits. Audra Emmerson netted a team-high 17 points, Ross was next with 15 points, Amellia Bromenschenkel finished with 14, Reid had 13, and Linbo scored 12. The Mastodons, who came into the game ranked eighth in the country with 37.6% shooting from three-point range, ended up going 10-for-26 (38.5%) from the arc.
“You can’t stop them all, but you can funnel them into places that you would like,” Milton-Jones said of PFW. “And I thought we did a good job of that overall in the first half. They were 2-for-7. So we were doing a great job, and it was a tied ball game. It was just a matter of us finding our rhythm offensively.
“We had a lead at one point, but then we came down and we gave up a three in transition, or we had a botched play, or we over help somewhere, and you can’t give a team like that any life, any hope. And when you do, true to form, there are good teams who are going to make you pay every single time.”
The Monarchs combined to shoot 24-for-77 (31.2%) on the night and shot just 3-for-22 (13.6%) from beyond the arc. They also made 10-of-18 (55.6%) shots at the free-throw line.
ODU led PFW in second-chance points, 21-15, but the hosts edged the Monarchs in points off turnovers (18-7), points in the paint (38-30), points off the bench (21-8), and fast-break points (14-9). Old Dominion had a slight lead on the glass, grabbing 47 rebounds to PFW’s 44.