5th ranked OSU women regain share of Big Ten lead

COLUMBUS — (AP) Kelsey Mitchell and Ohio State didn’t miss many shots in a rout of Purdue.The sophomore guard scored 27 points to lead the fifth-ranked Buckeyes 90-70 win over the Boilermakers on Sunday. ”We shot the ball really well today so I think obviously that was a big difference in the game, but it was a great win against a really good team,” Ohio State coach Kevin McGuff said. His team made 34 of 58 shots (59 percent) from the field while Purdue was 26 for 67 (39 percent). ”If you look at the stat lines, we had more shots, we had about the same amount of free throws, we had great boards,” Purdue coach Sharon Versyp said, ”but we shot poorly and they shot great.” Ameryst Alston added 25 for Ohio State while Shayla Cooper had 16 off the bench. She made all four of her 3-pointers, including three in the third quarter when Purdue was trying to chip away at an Ohio State lead that was nine points at the half. The Buckeyes’ power forward entered the game shooting 25 percent (4 for 16) from behind the arc. ”Ameryst gets mad when I pass up those shots when I’m wide open because a lot of teams tend to play off of me for the drive so I knew I would have some open shots,” Cooper said. Ohio State (13-4, 5-1) snapped Purdue’s nine-game winning streak and moved into a three-way tie atop the Big Ten standings with the Boilermakers (14-3, 5-1) and Maryland (16-2, 5-1). Alexa Hart had 10 points, five rebounds and three blocked shots for Ohio State. April Wilson led Purdue with 19 points while Ashley Morrissette scored 17 and Dominique McBryde had 12. The Buckeyes closed the first quarter on a 10-0 to open up a 24-14 lead and never trailed again. The closest Purdue would get was within four points early in the third quarter. …

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