Grace Berg

OMAHA — Hot shooting and a convincing first-half display carried the Drake women’s basketball team to a 75-62 opening day victory at Creighton Wednesday.

The 1-0 Bulldogs were led on the offensive end by a balanced display, but the debut of Grace Berg did not disappoint. The sophomore had 16 first-half points and six first-half rebounds as well to lead Drake.

The first quarter ended with a 29-17 Drake lead, as the Bulldogs shot a blistering 75 percent from the floor. For the whole first half, Drake shot 62 percent from the floor and hit 50 percent of its 3-point tries.

In the second half, Creighton found a second wind and threaten to make it a tight contest. Led by 18 points from Temi Carda, the Bluejays got within 11 points. But it was as close as they would get the rest of the game. A late third-quarter run pushed the lead back to 18 points and put the Bulldogs out of reach. Only scoring nine points in the fourth quarter was not enough to derail Drake’s easy victory.

Bair scored a game-high 24 points, grabbed seven rebounds and contributed three assists. Maddie Monahan scored 13 points, Kierra Collier scored 12 and Monica Burich had 10 for the Bulldogs.

Burich led the team in rebounds with 11, and the Bulldogs out-rebounded the Bluejays 43-34.

The Bulldogs cooled off in the second half and shot 46.2 percent from the floor over the course of the game, hitting 38.1 percent of their 3-point attempts. Creighton was held to 32.8 percent shooting and 26.7 percent from deep.

Carda was Creighton’s leading scorer with 18, with Emma Ronsiek (13) and Chloe Dworak (11) also reaching double figures.

Up next for the Bulldogs — a road game against Green Bay Saturday at 1 p.m. with TV coverage on ESPN3/ESPN+.