CEDAR FALLS, Iowa – During the Missouri Valley Conference’s Media Day last month, University of Northern Iowa fifth-year senior forward Grace Boffeli spoke about overcoming injuries and playing her final season with her fellow seniors.
“I think every day our mindset is just to enjoy every moment, whether that’s practice, lifting or games; just enjoy everyone with each other, because it’s going to go by quickly,” Boffeli told reporters on a Zoom call.
Unfortunately, her college career ended way more quickly than expected as she suffered a torn ACL during Saturday’s 76-70 loss against Ball State, just UNI’s third game into the season.
The Panthers were practicing early Tuesday morning, preparing for No. 8 Iowa State, when they got the official news of Boffeli’s diagnosis.
“We had kids sobbing, we couldn’t even practice,” UNI head coach Tanya Warren told reporters Wednesday night. “So we got together and just talked about how adversity will either develop or destroy, and the latter is not an option for our program. So I gave them until midnight. We tried to get ourselves together.”
Warren received a text late Tuesday night from fifth-year senior guard Maya McDermott, who like Boffeli, was named on the MVC Preseason All-Conference First Team.
“I will be ready,” the text said.
‘Dedicated to Grace Boffeli’
McDermott was more than ready Wednesday night against the Cyclones, scoring a career high 37 points on 14-of-21 shooting from the field, including 3-4 three-pointers and 6-6 from the free throw line.
The inspired performance led the Panthers to a 87-75 victory — the program’s first-ever win over a top 10 team. It was also the first top 10 victory by a MVC program during the regular season since Missouri State defeated then-No. 10 LSU, 85-75, on Nov. 24, 2000.
“Beating them on our home floor feels really good,” McDermott told reporters after the game. “And my performance, that’s just dedicated to Grace Boffeli. Everything with her and how she went down, everything we do is dedicated to her.”
Freshman forward Elise Jaeger was thrust into the starting lineup in place of Boffeli. She hit three 3-pointers for nine points and added five rebounds, three assists, one steal and one block — facing up against Iowa State’s Audi Crooks, one of the top post players in the country.
“It is for Grace, especially being here in the summer.. and just being able to see how she carries herself on and off the court, how she carries her teammates, kind of taught me how to be on the court, and the confidence of the coaches that instilled in me,” she told reporters after the game.
The 36-hour span of finding out their leader was out for the season to securing one of the biggest wins in program history was a rollercoaster of ups and downs for the team.
“We’ve been very emotional,” McDermott said. “It hasn’t been easy, even right before the tip off, it’s hard seeing her on crutches; it’s still unbelievable.”
Warren credited her team’s defense as the difference maker against the previously unbeaten top 10-ranked team.
“I thought we did a terrific job of defending. You’re not going to stop Iowa State. You just have to try to slow them down and mix some things up. Mixing up where we were trying to bring the doubles on Audi [Crooks]. And obviously Addy Brown is really, really good. And then Emily Ryan does a terrific job of getting them into their stuff. So we really tried to add a little bit more pressure with her. We played with our hands up, got some tips, and just tried to make it as difficult as we could in terms of where we were bringing the traps from and just making them different reads.”
Despite her career night scoring, McDermott agreed that the defense was key to the victory.
“That’s probably the best defensive game we’ve played in a really long time. We were a hands down D, we got every 50/50, ball,” she said.”We wanted it really, really bad, especially for what the news we got yesterday.”
Dealing with injuries nothing new
After being tabbed MVC Preseason Player of the Year in the 2023-24 season, Boffeli missed six games due to a shoulder injury. She was determined in the offseason to come back better than ever for her final year.
“It’s been a roller coaster, to be quite honest, and a lot of tears, a lot of tears, for a variety of reasons,” Warren said Wednesday night of Boffeli’s season-ending injury. “I know firsthand what that young lady went through to get herself back and then to have something like that happen. You’re devastated. Your heart breaks, but her impact remains the same. It’s just in a different capacity.”
McDermott, who also missed several games last season due to injury, spoke of how the team addresses inevitable adversity.
“Injuries just come with sports. So overcoming that adversity for us, that’s kind of our mojo,” McDermott said. “It’s pretty common to have injuries like that. We’ve been dealt a hard card, and we just got to push through it and keep playing. We’re not going to stop playing. We’re going to work hard for everybody, and that’s just what we do.”
Warren says the adversity can either make or break a team — and this week, the team pulled together for one of the biggest wins in program history.
“We talk a lot about life lessons, things are going to happen. We don’t always get to write our own script, but we have to be able to pick ourselves up and adapt and continue to write our stories,” she said. “And that’s the message that I told them today after shoot around… We knew we were a man down, but we also talked about this team is built one through 15. I’m proud of them, extremely proud of them, for so many reasons.
“We can’t get seduced by success. We have to understand what allowed us to win this basketball game. Enjoy it for a couple days. We have a couple days off, and then we have to get back to work,” she added.
The Panthers will travel to the Virgin Islands for the Paradise Jam tournament over Thanksgiving weekend, first facing Auburn on Thanksgiving Day. Their next in-state game is Dec. 20 against the Iowa Hawkeyes in Iowa City.
Iowa State plays in-state rival Drake at home this Sunday, and will travel to Iowa City on Dec. 11 to face Iowa.
The women’s programs of the four state schools in Iowa all face each other every year, as UNI and Drake play each other twice in the MVC regular season. This is a tradition the men’s programs stopped doing several years ago.
Iowa State head coach Bill Fennelly realizes the risk of playing a quality mid-major team with the adrenaline and fan base often on the smaller school’s side.
“These in-state games are hard. That’s why the men don’t play them,” he said after the loss Wednesday night.
