Midway through the second half of yesterday's WNIT third-round matchup, Northwestern made a quick 8-0 run to cut the Michigan lead to 11. But any hopes the Wildcats had about mounting a comeback were soon stifled.

With eight minutes to go in the game, freshman guard Jenny Ryan got a steal on the left block while sophomore forward Carmen Reynolds nailed a 3 pointer on the other end of the court, catapulting the Wolverines on a 10-0 run of their own and effectively sealing the 65-44 Michigan victory.

The win was the team's second over Northwestern in four matchups this season and advanced the Wolverines to the elite eight of the Women’s National Invitation Tournament (WNIT).

Defense was certainly the name of the game for Michigan, as it held the Wildcats to their second-lowest scoring output of the season.

“Our defense did a great job,” Michigan coach Kevin Borseth said after the game. “We played with a lot of energy and we needed to, they’re a very good basketball team. … We came out very strong, got out to an early lead and just kind of built on that.”

Ryan was a big part of that defensive mindset.

In the Wolverines’ last game against Northwestern, the Saginaw native demonstrated her shooting touch by tying a career high of 12 points. Last night, Ryan had six steals and recorded the team’s only block on a Northwestern 3-point attempt.

“She deflects a lot of passes,” Borseth said. “Every time the ball is there, she gets a hand on quite a few passes, deflects them, steals them, gets some jump balls. … She does a lot of the intangibles that don’t show up sometimes on the score sheet.”

But Ryan wasn’t the only player to make an impact defensively. Senior center Krista Phillips kept Northwestern center Amy Jaeschke, who had dominated Michigan in the first three matchups, to just four points in the first half and a quiet 12 overall.

“She is such a good scorer around that basket, she just requires so much attention,” Borseth said. “I thought we did a good job of really having active legs and getting to her and out in her.”

Phillips did it on the offensive end as well with a game-high 17 points. It was the second game in a row in which the offense went down low, through Phillips, which opened up things for her teammates on the perimeter.

Three other players scored in double figures. Reynolds scored 13 while freshman guard Dayeesha Hollins contributed 14 points and junior guard Veronica Hicks had 11.

“Any time (Phillips) does well, obviously, around the basket it helps us,” Borseth said. “She has that presence about her you know. The key is to take good shots. I think the ones she took today were down inside that lane attacking the basket as opposed to standing outside flinging it at the basket.”

The game was eerily similar to the Wolverines’ last game against Northwestern in the Big Ten Tournament. In that game, Michigan jumped out to a big lead early and went into halftime with a 22-point lead. Yesterday, the Wolverines went into halftime up 35-18.

The Wildcats didn’t pose a serious threat in the second half of either game, and Michigan looks to carry that momentum into Sunday’s matchup in Ann Arbor against the winner of tomorrow’s game between Virginia Commonwealth and Syracuse.