Iowa State women’s basketball uses balanced effort to beat Kansas State, 67-56

AMES — Iowa State women’s basketball head coach Bill Fennelly publicly urged his talented guard, Denae Fritz, to produce more after the No. 15 Cyclones lost star forward Stephanie Soares for the season because of a torn ACL.

Fritz responded — and it turns out that has been a theme Fennelly’s emphasized to her for some time.

“I think he’s been on me for that (since) the beginning of the season,” said Fritz, who notched career highs in points (14) and blocked shots (3) in ISU’s 67-56 win Wednesday over Kansas State at Hilton Coliseum. “But obviously with Steph out, all of us have to step up.”

The Cyclones (11-3, 3-1 Big 12) struggled to shake the Wildcats (12-5, 1-3) most of the night, but finally pulled away with a 10-2 run to start the fourth quarter. Point guard Emily Ryan sparked the decisive surge with back-to-back three-point plays — one traditional, one from beyond the arc. Ryan joined three teammates with 14 points, but she also grabbed 10 rebounds and doled out eight assists to just one turnover.

“Emily found a way,” said fellow guard Lexi Donarski, who also scored 14 points on 4-for-8 3-point shooting. “She went in there strong.”

The Cyclones’ all-time leading scorer, Ashley Joens, scored 14 points as well, but shot just 5-for-15 from the field while narrowly missing her 56th career double-double.

“She’s one of the top players in the country and is gonna be a first-round (WNBA) pick,” Kansas State coach Jeff Mittie said. “Should have been a first-round pick last year and she chose to come back, which is really good for Iowa State. She’s a heck of a player. I’ll be glad when she’s a first-round pick and I will be glad to give them a recommendation on her.”

Donarski and Fritz teamed up to guard Wildcats star Gabby Gregory, who entered Wednesday’s game averaging a league-leading 21.8 points. She scored eight points against the Cyclones, snapping a five-game streak of scoring 20 or more.

Fritz drew primary duty on Gregory and thwarted several post-up opportunities while occasionally being aided by a double team.

“We talked about not letting Gabby post us up a lot,” Fennelly said. “She’s really good. They do a lot of really good stuff, whether it’s some misdirection and all of a sudden she’s posting. I think, for the most part, Denae was pretty good. Our double teams — we don’t do it a lot, but we kind of put it in on on the fly because we’re doing a lot of things that we normally don’t do.”

That includes adjusting to being without Soares, who averaged 15 points and anchored the defense with elite shot-blocking ability. The Cyclones shot 37.7 percent overall and 31.3 percent from 3-point range, but limited Kansas State to just 33.3 percent shooting to notch the victory.

“We talked before the game about finding a way to have some success given the situation that we’re in,” Fennelly said. “And one of those ways is to have some balance and I thought our balance on both ends of the floor was phenomenal.”

Fritz helped on both counts — and will continue to be asked to do more given her versatile on-court attributes. Her 14 points Wednesday came on just six field goal attempts. She went 4-for-4 from the line and also grabbed seven rebounds.

“Fantastic at both ends,” Fennelly said. “Tremendously efficient. She had to guard Gabby Gregory most of the night who’s the leading scorer in our league. That’s the Denae that we know was there and the Denae we have to have now, for sure.”

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