With 16 seconds left in Sunday’s game, with the Gophers women’s basketball team about to break a three-game losing streak, junior point guard Amaya Battle made two free throws.
A victory. A milestone. A memorable day at Williams Arena.
In order: The Gophers, playing defense from start to finish, beat Indiana 66-56. It was a much-needed victory over a Hoosiers team they hadn’t beaten in six years.
For Battle? Her game-high 16 points — eight in the fourth quarter, six of those from the free-throw line — pushed her career scoring total to 1,001 points.
Of course, being the ultimate example of a player who exists in the moment, Battle didn’t even know it. At least not until those final 16 seconds had expired.
“After the game we were all huddled and cheering together,” said Battle, the 28th player in program history to surpass 1,000 career points. “I’m thinking, ‘Oh, we’re cheering that we won the game, we’re out of that three-game stretch.’ And then Nia [Holloway] said, ‘You know why we’re cheering, don’t you? You have 1,000 points!’ And I was like, ‘Cool.’”
It was a beautiful way to end a game that might not have been the most aesthetically pleasing.
The Gophers (19-6, 7-6 Big Ten) turned the ball over a bit and went cold as ice down the stretch, going the final eight-plus minutes without a field goal.