Lexi Donarski made Hilton Coliseum her world on Saturday night, and TCU was just living in it.
The Iowa State freshman ended the game with 32 points on a 10-14 shooting night, including six buckets from downtown, in the Cyclones’ 92-81 win over the Lady Frogs.
“I thought Lexi Donarski was incredible from start to finish,” Iowa State coach Bill Fennelly said. “That’s as good of a game as anyone has played for us in a long time.
The mark is a career high for Donarski and comes as the Cyclones are getting more and more prepared for the postseason.
But Donarski gave all the credit to her teammates.
“It felt really good, but that’s definitely a team effort,” Donarski said. “We were very unselfish tonight. We were always looking to make the extra pass. It was good.”
Ashley Joens added 22 points on the night and Kristin Scott helped out with 17 points and nine boards.
“It’s good to see (Donarski) come in there and compete and knock down some shots,” Joens said of her teammate. “She struggled for a little bit, so just to see her get in there and have that confidence was great.”
With four regular season games left, the team sits at 13-8 on the season and at 9-5 in Big 12 Conference play.
As a team, Iowa State was 15-33 from downtown as well as 19-20 from the free throw line.
Those are both welcomed statistics after Iowa State’s poor performance in their last lost to Oklahoma.
“That’s the funny part about it,” Fennelly said. “That’s the nature of our team. (In the first quarter against OU), we went 3-20. Tonight, we made almost everything we looked at.”
The performance was encouraging for the Cyclones as the regular season winds down.
For the team, it’s all about confidence.
“After a game like Oklahoma where we struggled to shoot, (we’re) just getting our confidence back, kind of knocking down those shots,” Joens said. “And then free throws, they’re called free for a reason.”
If the Cyclones can carry that confidence and those makes, it’ll be difficult to find a game where they aren’t competing for the win.
However, we’ve seen the other side of that.
But the Cyclones hope to maintain tonight’s momentum as the team faces Kansas for the first time this season in Lawrence on Wednesday (7:00 p.m. ESPN+).
