IOWA CITY — Only Caitlin Clark could seem displeased after coming within two rebounds of a triple-double.
The Iowa senior was on the verge of achieving that feat in an Women's NCAA Tournament game for the second time, leading the top-seeded Hawkeyes to a 91-65 win over Holy Cross in first-round action at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. Clark led Iowa with 27 points and 10 assists while also grabbing eight rebounds against the Crusaders on Saturday.
The numbers said it was a good day. Clark's body language, however, said otherwise at times as the country's top college basketball player showed visible frustration multiple times in her penultimate home game of her Hawkeye basketball career.
"I would say I probably could have smiled a little more," Clark said. "I think the first quarter kind of frustrated maybe all of us in a way. I feel like this is a game you want to come out and dominate from the start because this is what fuels your run."
Instead, Clark made just one of her first six shots from the field. Iowa's best run in the opening quarter came with Clark sitting on the bench as the Hawkeyes scored eight straight points in 91 seconds to open an 18-11 lead on a 3-pointer by Kate Martin off a feed from Taylor McCabe before Gabbie Marshall found Addison O'Grady twice in transition for lay-ups.
"Sometimes our offense, we just pass the ball a little bit better when Caitlin is on the bench," Iowa head women's basketball coach Lisa Bluder said. "I thought our team really moved well, they cut hard, and it's really comforting to know that if Caitlin is on the bench that we can still score really well. I thought some other people really stepped up in that situation."
The first guard to heat up from the floor, however, wasn't wearing an Iowa jersey. Bronagh Power-Cassidy sank three consecutive shots from 3-point range for Holy Cross in the final three minutes of the opening quarter, scoring 12 points while hitting 4-6 from deep cutting Iowa's lead to 23-21 heading into the second quarter.
"One thing the coaches always tell us is just to be present and to be in the moment, but we just worked so hard to get to this point and the season we had was never easy, so I think we just never took anything for granted and at the end of the day," Power-Cassidy said. "We've played basketball our whole lives. I just don't want this season to end and I just want to keep wearing purple. So, I think we just wanted to be in the moment and give everything we had every shot because (Iowa) is a phenomenal team, but we just wanted to go out playing our style of basketball and we just knew we celebrate each other.
"We enjoy playing with one another so I think that was the most important thing and just play fearlessly and I think we do that as a team, regardless of stage, that's how we want to play."
Iowa was finally able to begin pulling away from Holy Cross, outscoring the Crusaders 25-9 in the second quarter to build a 48-30 halftime lead. Even that stretch, however, did not come without a physical toll as Clark took an inadvertent shot to the face by Power-Cassidy early in the quarter while Kate Martin bumped her head on the floor making a run to the basket.
"I didn't really say anything too inspiring, honestly. I think we all kind of knew what needed to be done, and it was our defense, and we responded really well in the second quarter," Martin said. "We also keep talking about, you know, we only have one more game left in Carver now too, so this was one of two games left for us seniors here in Carver, and so trying to enjoy every single moment and that puts things in perspective for us.
"But yeah, I think my head's fine. I just have a nice little goose egg back there. How do I look?"
Martin would join Clark in producing a double-double on Saturday for the Hawkeyes, scoring 15 points while grabbing a game-high 14 rebounds. Iowa (30-4) owned a 43-27 rebounding edge over Holy Cross despite sophomore forward Hannah Stuelke playing just 10 minutes.
She didn't feel well, and it just wasn't worth putting her in there when we didn't have to have her," Bluder said of Stuelke. "So just trying to save her for Monday. I thought, like, again, Addi(son O'Grady) went in and did a great job. We were 11-16 (from the floor) with our center positions, which is pretty good."
O'Grady added 14 points in 14 minutes for Iowa, connecting on seven of nine shots from the field. Gabbie Marshall scored 11 points sinking a trio of 3-pointers for the Hawkeyes to help put away the postseason win.
When Gabbie's on, it really is like lights a fire under all of us, honestly," Martin said. "When she's hitting her shots and playing with passion and just sticking her tongue out or like cheering, it really lights a fire under all of our butts. So when Gabbie's hitting, it's really fun for us, and when you see one go through the net and it was her first shot and our first points, then makes are contagious."
Cassidy-Power, playing with a broken hand, led Holy Cross with 19 points while Janelle Allen added 18 points for the Crusaders. Cara McCormack scored 11 points for the Patriot League champions, who finished the season with a record of 21-13 including a 72-45 opening-round NCAA tournament win in Iowa City on Thursday over Tennessee-Martin.
"Just coming out of the locker room, I promised the girls I would hold it together," Holy Cross head women's basketball coach Maureen Magarity said. "I mean, on this stage, to play the way that we played against a perennial power, the face of women's basketball right now (Clark), I just can't put into words how proud I am of our fight, how we competed."
