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After building a big lead with a career-high 25 points from sophomore guard Alyssa Karel, the Wisconsin women’s basketball team was able hold off Northern Illinois down the stretch, winning 70-64 and extending their winning streak to eight games.

Coming into the game, Wisconsin was shooting only 39.1 percent as a team, but looked nothing like that Sunday. The Badgers shot 61.9 percent for the game, including a remarkable 73.9 percent in the first half. Their shooting percentage set a team record for play at the Kohl Center and led to the team’s most points in regulation this season. Karel scored her 25 points on 11-of-14 shooting, including 2-for-3 from 3-point range. Juniors Rae Lin D’Alie and Mariah Dunham chipped in with 11 points apiece while Teah Gant added eight points.

Karel, whose .786 shooting percentage was the sixth-highest in school history, attributed her success to the type of defense the Huskies ran.

“The defense was really spread out,” Karel said. “Everybody was looking to attack and trying to create stuff, so that really helped the momentum of our team. The defense was so spread that I just tried to get in there and make something happen.”

D’Alie, who orchestrates Wisconsin’s offense at point guard, made sure that the ball touched Karel’s hands whenever possible.

“Whenever anyone is going off like that, you definitely want to find those players,” D’Alie said. “She started off the game and couldn’t miss. Alyssa was making play after play, and I was definitely looking for her out there.”

As a whole, the Badgers came out on fire in the first half, making 17-of-23 shots and building a 41-24 halftime lead. Wisconsin did cool down in the second half, though, shooting 47.4 percent.

“Confidence is contagious,” Wisconsin coach Lisa Stone said. “When you’re feeling it, it’s obviously something you want to stay with. Rae Lin’s shot came back after struggling a little bit, and Mariah got good looks as well.”

Wisconsin’s defense, which has been the team’s strongest asset so far, wasn’t as solid as it had normally been, especially in the second half. Though the Huskies shot only 40.4 percent for the game, they were able to trim a lead that had been as much as 20 early in the second half to only six points with 31 seconds left. The 40 points that Wisconsin allowed in the second half was the most they have allowed in the second 20 minutes this season.

Northern Illinois was also able to pick up 12 offensive rebounds and score 11 second-chance points to make up for their poor shooting percentage. The Huskies were led by Marke Freeman’s 15 points.

“Though we’re happy with the win, our staff and team is disappointed with our second half,” Stone said. “We played poorly in the second half, particularly defensively. We wanted those last 20 minutes to be our best and be able to put them away, but we weren’t able to. We allowed them to get in the paint, and we lacked some aggressiveness rebounding the ball, but we did get the win.”

Though disappointed in the second half, Stone is using the team’s poor performance in the second half as learning tool.

“The teaching points have started already,” Stone said. “Our freshmen are doing a really good job. They’re learning as they go, but the second 20 minutes was unacceptable. We became sluggish on offense, especially when Alyssa went out. We wanted to take a step forward, and we didn’t control what we could as unit.”

Karel, despite her career game, knows that Wisconsin will have to play better, especially on defense, if they want to keep their winning streak intact.

“Defensively, we have stuff to work on,” Karel said. “Coach [Stone] challenged us at halftime to come out in the second half and have the best defensive half of the season and obviously we weren’t very good.”

The Badgers had been averaging only 15.3 turnovers per game, but struggled in this regard as well. Wisconsin turned the ball over 21 times on Sunday, leading to 14 Northern Illinois points.

“Turnovers concerned me today. They put more pressure on us and made us cough it up too many times, but we’re better than hand-to-hand passing and some of those careless turnovers. We’ll address it and move on to the next game.”