Iowa women cruise past North Dakota

IOWA CITY - When Iowa's women's basketball team needed a lift in the first half, they got a boost from forward Kali Peschel.

Peschel, a 6-foot-1 senior from Sauk Centre, Minn., scored 17 points and grabbed 14 rebounds to pace the 23rd-ranked Hawkeyes to an 83-61 season-opening win against North Dakota Friday night at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

Her first-half performance was vital in a back-and-forth game. Peschel had 13 points and 10 rebounds by halftime to earn her first career double-double. It also kept her team ahead 33-31 at the break.

'In the first half it was a little rough on the offensive end, but I found a way to score getting offensive boards,” Peschel said. 'My teammates did a great job of setting me up for my shot.”

Perhaps most important, Peschel pulled down eight offensive rebounds, including six in the first half. She hit three 3-pointers, added an assist and had only one turnover in 29 minutes.

'We'd love to get those kinds of rebounds out of Kali all the time,” Iowa Coach Lisa Bluder said. 'She's somebody that we expect to crash, but we have three people we want crashing all the time. We want our whole team doing that.”

'(Peschel) bringing that aggression on offense and defense regally helped us,” said Iowa junior Ally Disterhoft, who scored a game-high 20 points. 'Then just being vocal at halftime, getting everybody back together and helping set people up in the second half. But in the first half we needed that.

The game was close well into the third quarter, with Iowa leading 62-56. The Hawkeyes then cruised to an a 21-5 run the rest of the way.

'I liked our second half a lot better than our first half,” Bluder said. 'But I think we turned it around the second half. In the first half we were in such a hurry, and we weren't sticking to what Iowa basketball is all about. I'm really happy that we went into halftime, we talked about it, and the team came out and made adjustments. That is outstanding.”

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