At the end of the first half of Iowa women’s basketball’s matchup with Minnesota Wednesday night, a 92-79 Hawkeye victory did not appear to be a likely outcome.

The Golden Gophers were excellent from the floor in the first half, shooting 53.3 percent from the field and making eight 3-pointers. On the other hand, the Hawkeyes weren’t quite as effective with the ball, as they converted on just 46.7 percent of their attempts in the game’s opening 20 minutes.

At one point toward the end of the second quarter, the Golden Gophers were leading by as much as 16 points.

“Tale of two halves,” Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder said. “The second half was amazing. The third quarter was amazing. The first half, not so great. We really let Minnesota get into a rhythm.”

The Hawkeyes cut the lead down to 10 points by halftime, and they continued to chip away in the third quarter.

Freshman guard Caitlin Clark and sophomore guard Megan Meyer each hit a 3-pointer in the beginning of the quarter. Then at the 3:34 mark of the third quarter, sophomore guard Kate Martin hit a layup on a fast break, giving the Hawkeyes a one-point lead that they would expand upon and never relinquish.

Martin, who played with a broken nose Wednesday night, scored seven points in the game.

“[Martin has] tremendous confidence right now,” Bluder said. “Night and day from last year. Last year she was coming off an ACL tear, she was playing with a brace, just really never got her stride back. Now, this year without the brace, playing confidently, shooting the ball very well but she is the blue-collar person on our team in my estimation. She’s the one that goes to the board, she’s the one that does the dirty work. She breaks her nose in the Illinois game and wants to go back in and wants to get back in the game when we’re up like 30 points. I mean that’s the type of mentality that kid has.”

Martin is a team captain, and her confidence has rubbed off on her teammates. Even without making her presence felt as a scorer, Martin still impacts Iowa games whenever she steps on the floor.

“She’s just a natural-born leader,” junior center Monika Czinano said. “So, it just comes so natural to her. In all the timeouts we really trust what she’s saying, we trust her vision, and we just know she’s going to work as hard as she can. She broke her nose for God’s sake and didn’t take any days off.”

Martin wasn’t the only Hawkeye dealing with injury issues on Wednesday.

In the first half, sophomore forward McKenna Warnock got her eye scratched. But, she came back in the second half and scored all nine of her points in just 12 minutes of second-half action.

“They got me some numbing cream so the pain kind of went of way with that,” Warnock said. “I was fine after.”

The Hawkeyes’ next game will pit them against No. 22 Northwestern on the road in Evanston, Illinois. The game will be aired on the Big Ten Network at 6 p.m.