No. 10 Irish roll over Purdue Northwest in exhibition

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (WNDU) - Notre Dame’s women’s basketball team enters this season ranked No. 10 in the country and will tip off the regular season next Monday.

On Monday night, we were treated to their last tune-up exhibition against Purdue Northwest, and the Irish are looking sharp right out of the gate.

Now a big story line for this year’s team is the injury status of point guard Olivia Miles. The same knee injury that ended her season back in February is likely to keep her out for the start of this year’s campaign.

But next in line is freshman floor general Hannah Hidalgo, who is already giving Irish fans plenty of optimism heading into the season. She pitched in a performance of 23 points and seven assists, along with five steals on the defensive end as Notre Dame imposed their will on Purdue Northwest early and often.

The game started with a 21-0 Irish run and ended with the lopsided final score of 110-48.

After the game, head coach Niele Ivey was understandably pleased with how her team performed.

“Excited for this win, but also excited the season is starting,” she said. “Really proud of this group. We’ve had a lot of great work the last several weeks and the summer. Having the opportunity to play someone else was exciting for us. There were so many highlights. I loved the way we started. I talked about pregame setting the tone and having a dominating mindset, and I feel like we did. One thing I loved about the win was that we had six players in double figures, so it shows the balance that we’ll have this year.”

As we already mentioned, Notre Dame will tip off its season in just six days. They’ll play a top-10 matchup with No. 6 South Carolina in Paris, France on Nov. 6.

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