Camryn Volz admitted it was not really on her radar.
Volz is more focused the Northern Kentucky University women’s basketball team improving daily, but the Norse earned her 100th career victory with a 73-54 win over Detroit Mercy on Wednesday.
“I did know last game because I caught some of the celebration things in the snack bag on the bus,” Volz said. “I’m happy for 100 career wins. I’m mostly happy that I still have a job here that I can continue to coach these kids and hopefully make an impact on our program. I appreciate the celebration. If it weren’t for (Director of Operations) Lindsey Duvall, I wouldn’t have had a clue. I have a great staff. They had it together and had a little celebration in the locker room, which was nice.”
The game took place at 11 a.m. as part of Education Day. A crowd of 4,122 at Truist Arena watched the Norse move to 5-15 overall and 3-8 in Horizon League play.
Khamari Mitchell-Steen led the way scoring a career-best 29 points on a season-high 10 field goals made to go with four rebounds, four assists, four steals and two blocks. The 29 points is the fourth-most against an NCAA Division I opponent by a Northern Kentucky player since the Norse transitioned to Division I in the 2012-13 season.
“I just took what they gave me,” Mitchell-Steen said. “I saw openings for when I would get the drive in. Once they started helping over, I was like, ‘I’ll just dish it to my teammates to get them off of me. Once they came off of me, I could get my buckets again.”
Carter McCray had another strong game inside with 14 points and nine rebounds, opening things up for Northern Kentucky’s outside shooters. Macey Blevins scored 17 points and Kennedy Igo scored nine.
“My teammates helped me telling me where the double team was coming from,” McCray said. “We’ve been working on that in practice. Getting better there and really my teammates hitting shots put us in a great position. The inside-out game was great (Wednesday).”
Northern Kentucky shot 45% from the field, making eight 3-pointers and held Detroit to 36% from the field including no three-pointers. Irene Murua, Amaya Burch and Paris Gilmore led the Titans scoring 15, 11 and 10 points, respectively.
Northern Kentucky fell behind 19-12 before coming back to go up 31-29. The Norse outscored the Titans, 24-9 in the third quarter to go up 55-38 entering the fourth quarter.
Northern Kentucky hosts Oakland on Friday at 7 p.m.