Megan Rogowski nearly equaled the McGrath-Phillips Arena record for three-pointers, and DePaul hit 11 treys to secure an 89-73 victory over visiting Seton Hall Saturday afternoon. The win extended DePaul’s school-record conference winning streak to nine.
Rogowski hit seven threes in the game, one short of her own arena record set in January. She led all scorers with 27 points, many of them provided by Brittany Hrynko, who scored just six points but dished out a career-high-tying 12 assists.
“Megan could make every shot from 22, 25 (feet),” head coach Doug Bruno said. “She knocked down her long ones pretty good.”
DePaul (20-5, 11-2 Big East) executed their run-and-gun offense to near perfection in the first half and while they may not have made every shot, it was apparent that they had the opportunity to. Cuts were crisp and screens were hard, and Seton Hall (14-10, 5-8) made little effort to lock down. The Blue Demons constantly found open space to operate. Rogowski and Jasmine Penny combined for 34 of the team’s 49 first half points, mostly because there was no contest from the Pirates. Rogowski started 4-4 from downtown and netted five three-pointers in the half, and Penny hit six of ten shots from primarily deep in the paint.
On one of the rare contested shots in the half, Rogowski caught the ball and stroked a three-pointer from the corner while getting hit on the hand and crashing to the ground. The junior calmly stepped to the line and sank the ensuing free throw to complete the four-point play and give DePaul a 22-11 lead with just over 14 minutes remaining until halftime. She finished with 19 points at the half.
“We always shoot the ball to make it,” Rogowski said. “Today, the ball was going in. My teammates were finding me. I was getting open looks and we had great ball movement.”
Seton Hall closed the gap, but a 13-1 run over the final 5:07 of the first half gave the Blue Demons a comfortable 16-point lead going into the locker room.
True to form, Rogowski opened the second half with her sixth three-pointer to put DePaul up by 19. Still, DePaul failed to gain much momentum and continually allowed Seton Hall to climb back into the game.
“We have not had good second halves. That’s something we’ve been dealing with all season long,” Bruno said.
“(We realized) we were making mistakes…in certain spurts we picked it up and got back better. The team did a good job with that,” Penny said. “We made a lot of improvement but there’s still a lot we need to do to get better.”
The Blue Demons led 64-54 before Megan Podkowa and Brandi Harvey-Carr combined for consecutive three-point plays on consecutive possessions. Then, Hrynko nailed a contested three-pointer. On the play, Harvey-Carr was fouled and hit the front end of a 1-and-1. The 10-2 run helped DePaul pull away and secure the victory. It’s the seventh season in a row that DePaul has reached at least 20 wins.