Player Spotlight
Maggard becomes all-time leading scorer at Belmont
Courtesy of belmontbruins.com:
HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, Ky. – On a night where Darby Maggard further cemented her legacy as an all-time Belmont great, all the high-scoring senior wanted to talk about was her teammates and the Bruins’ fourth win in a row.
The Belmont women’s basketball team moved to 4-1 with a 71-53 thumping of Northern Kentucky at the BB&T Center behind 16 points from Maggard (Larwill, Ind.). One basket in particular Wednesday was more notable than the rest.
A second-quarter jump shot made Maggard the program’s all-time leading scorer in Belmont’s NCAA Division I era. She entered the game needing just four points to pass former teammate Sally McCabe for the top of the leaderboard. By the final whistle, Maggard had boosted her career total to 1,553 points, the most in program history since Belmont transitioned to the D-I level for the 1997-98 season.
Maggard ranks sixth in scoring all time in program history, which dates back to 1968 at the NAIA level.
“It feels so cool,” said Maggard before turning the focus away from herself. “Being able to watch how far the program has come, the people who have come before me and the people that will come after me, it’s really cool to be a part of all that and to play with these teammates.”
Those teammates gave Belmont one of its most well-rounded offensive outings of the young season. Nine Bruins scored with four reaching double figures including 13-point scorers senior Jenny Roy (Brentwood, Tenn.) and junior Ellie Harmeyer (Kenosha, Wis.) and 10 points from freshman Conley Chinn (Jackson, Miss.), a career best.
“Coach says all the time, it’s the simple plays that make things happen,” Chinn said. “When I relax out there and let it come to me, do the simple plays, good things started happening for me.”
After a low-scoring heavyweight bout at Middle Tennessee State on Monday in which the Bruins struggled shooting the ball, the team came out slow again Wednesday. Northern Kentucky (1-3) led 18-16 at the end of one quarter. Belmont regrouped at the quarter break and shot lights out in the ensuing two frames to take control though.
Belmont hit on 54 percent of its shots (19-of-35) in the second and third quarters combined, and the Bruins made 5-of-10 3-point attempts in the second quarter alone. They led comfortably 59-34 headed to the fourth quarter.
“Especially when the second quarter came, we started to play Belmont basketball and get our energy,” said Harmeyer, who added a team-high nine rebounds. “Our focus was better and it all started to come together. We came out guns blazing in the second quarter like we knew we could.”
Roy grabbed seven boards and rounded out her day with three assists and three steals. Belmont had a season-best 11 steals and eight Bruins combined for 10 blocks on defense.
Up Next: The Bruins will enjoy a long Thanksgiving break after finishing a stretch of four games in 10 days, playing next a week from Thursday. Belmont hosts Toledo at the Curb Event Center on No. 29, an 11 a.m. tipoff.
