COLLEGE PARK — Oluchi Okananwa scored 25 points, surpassing 1,200 in her career, and No. 14 Maryland women’s basketball defeated Northwestern, 79-57, on Wednesday night for its sixth straight win.
Okananwa, one of four 1,000-point scorers on Maryland’s roster, now has 1,213 career points. The 17.4 points per game scorer has 51 points in the past two games.
“You look at the growth from the beginning of the season to now, I think we’re peaking at the right time before postseason play,” Okananwa said.
Northwestern was within eight points in the middle of the third quarter before Okananwa and Kyndal Walker each scored six points in a 12-2 run that gave the Terps a 63-45 lead heading to the final quarter.
The lead reached 24 points four times in the fourth quarter.
Maryland (23-6, 11-6 Big Ten) turned Northwestern’s 21 turnovers into 24 points. The Terps committed only six turnovers, leading to two points for Northwestern.
Among Maryland’s starters, Yarden Garzon scored 11 points, Addi Mack added 10 points and Saylor Poffenbarger grabbed 13 rebounds to reach 1,000 for her career.
“Rebounding in the nonconference was our identity. We kind of got away from that, so our emphasis in February has been our rebounding and our defense,” Poffenbarger said. “I’ve been more intentional about crashing because I know more opportunities give us more points.”
Walker scored 10 points off the bench for Maryland, reaching double digits for the sixth time in her redshirt freshman season. Breanna Williams added nine points and four rebounds.
“Twenty-two points off the bench is something that’ll really help us as we get into postseason play,” Terps coach Brenda Frese said. “We need that depth.”
Grace Sullivan scored 23 points for Northwestern (8-20, 2-15).
Okananwa scored eight points in the first quarter and Maryland led 20-14 after one. A 12-3 run in the second quarter helped push the lead to 15 points and the Terps went on to lead 44-31 at halftime.
Maryland leads the series with Northwestern 16-1 and has won the past eight games.
Up next
Maryland: Visits No. 8 Michigan on Saturday in a regular-season finale.
Northwestern: The regular season ends at home against Purdue on Sunday.