HOUSTON—After missing Northwestern State’s previous eight games, including all seven Southland Conference games, Stephie Salumu made sure her impact was felt.
Salumu made up for lost time with a near double-double, surpassing her season highs in points (12) and rebounds (9), to lead Northwestern (9-7, 6-2) to a wire-to-wire 67-57 road win over Houston Christian (4-11, 2-6) on Thursday evening at Sharp Gymnasium.
With the win, the Lady Demons improved to 4-0 on the road in SLC play, the first time that has been done since 2014-15.
No plays were more important for the Demons than a sequence late in the game with NSU clinging to a 59-54 lead. It began when Salumu was fouled and made a pair of free throws to extend the lead to seven.
Then she blocked a 3-pointer from Kamryn McLaurin and sprinted down the floor to receive a feed from Nya Valentine for a layup to put the Demons in front by nine and essentially close out the win.
Salumu’s defense was a big reason for the Lady Demons holding the second-best shooting team from the field going in to just 26.2 percent from the floor, the second-worst by a D-I opponent against NSU this season. HCU also went just 4-for-31 from deep.
A pair of free throws each from Vernell Atamah and Carla Celaya put the finishing touches on the road victory, their fifth win on the road this season, just one shy of their road win total from last season.
Early in the fourth quarter, it seemed like NSU was going to cruise to victory, as it was in front 54-40 with eight minutes to play after an Atamah layup.
But the Huskies scored 10 straight to cut it to 54-50, going 4-for-5 from the field during that run.
After an NSU timeout, Valentine calmly buried a triple to push the lead back to seven, and it never was closer than five the rest of the way.
Valentine had 10 of her game-high 18 in the first quarter to start the Demons off on the right foot.
Tiara Abron scored 13 points for her third consecutive game scoring in double figures and fourth in the last five contests.
Jordan Jackson recorded a double-double for the Huskies, posting 16 points and 11 rebounds in defeat.
The Demons wrap up the weekend with a trip to UIW on Saturday before finishing up the three-game road trip against rival Stephen F. Austin. The next game at Prather Coliseum is Jan. 24 against East Texas A&M.
