By: Noah Gross

The Maryland Women’s Basketball team throttled the Illinois Fighting Illini on Thursday night by a score of 84-59 at the XFINITY Center.

Illinois hung around early, but Maryland really took off late in the second quarter with a 10-0 run, leading to a halftime lead of 40-20.

“The second quarter was where you saw we can kind of separate as a team,” said Coach Brenda Frese. “I thought we were really able to dominate in that stretch.”

The star tonight was who else, but Shatori Walker-Kimbrough. While she did not have her best game early on, she dominated from the outside in the second-half, totaling 29 points in the game, to go along with her six assists and five rebounds.

Destiny Slocum impressed yet again against Illinois as she nearly had a double-double. She did not shoot all that well from the field only making three shots, but she had 13 assists and just two turnovers.

“When you have a point guard like Destiny Slocum, it’s like warmups out there,” said Walker-Kimbrough. “[The] shots were wide open.”

Senior-star Brionna Jones did not shoot her usual great percentage from the floor going 4-9, but she still tallied a double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds.

Maryland’s defense was also stifling tonight, tallying ten steals and holding Illinois to under 60 points.

“I think we are really starting to lock in,” said Coach Frese about Maryland’s defense. “I said to Shatori during the game, I thought she really competed hard on both ends of the floor.”

Illinois played a tough opponent on Thursday in Maryland, and their coach took notice.

Upon leaving the press conference, coach Matt Bollant said to the Maryland press, “Be proud of your team, you got a good one.”

That team that Bollant was praising is now heading to East Lansing to take on Michigan State. Maryland will take on the Spartans at 2:00 p.m. Sunday as Maryland looks to remain undefeated in Big Ten play.