Laura Ziegler just made history at St. Joseph’s. Her family was in town from Denmark to watch it happen.

The St. Joseph’s women’s basketball team jokes that its international players perform better when their family is there.

But in Laura Ziegler’s case against Loyola Chicago on Sunday, it wasn’t much of a joke.

With 43 points against the Ramblers, the junior forward broke a 35-year-old single-game scoring record (42) set by Dale Hodges on Jan. 31, 1990. She earned Atlantic 10, Big 5, and USBWA National Player of the Week honors for her efforts. And she got to do it in front of her family, which flew in from Denmark the night before.

“I think you just have a different chip on your shoulder,” said Ziegler, who’s from Herlev, a suburb of Copenhagen. “You really just want to play well and make them proud because they don’t get to watch you a lot anymore. So you appreciate it in a whole different way. That was really special. That meant everything to me.”

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It’s currently winter break in Denmark, and Ziegler’s brother, Mads, is off from school, so the family made its annual trip to watch her play. Ziegler credits family as the reason she plays basketball and said she just wants to make them proud.

Basketball is a large part of life for the Ziegler family and the reason her parents, Dorthe and Ronnie Ziegler, met. So to see her succeed at something so important to their family and that she has worked so hard for is “really special” to Ronnie.

“We feel so blessed that she is having all the success she’s having here,” he said.

Head coach Cindy Griffin said it was “great to see” the way Ziegler found different ways to rack up points.

“The shots that she gets a lot of times are tough shots; they’re not easy shots,” Griffin said. “And in order for her to have a game like that, she’s going to have to score in different ways.”

While Laura Ziegler was too focused on making those different shots to be aware of what was happening, her parents were well-informed.

“We had no idea what the program record was, but when she had 41, we were sitting next to a couple of, I think, former students at St Joe’s, and one of them leaned over and told us that the next time she would score, she was going to break the program record,” Ronnie Ziegler said. “So that was very special.”

Until she was subbed out with 5 minutes, 55 seconds left in the game, Ziegler simply knew she was scoring a lot. She assumed her coaches kept her in for the majority of the 83-45 rout of the Ramblers because she was playing well, not because she was on the brink of breaking a record.

“My team at the half was like, ‘You got more points than the whole Loyola Chicago team,’ and the students kept going, ‘We want 30.’ ‘We want 40.’ ‘We want 50.’ But I had no idea about the record until I got subbed out in the fourth quarter when I was done playing,” Ziegler said.

Ziegler and Griffin are hoping the momentum can help carry the team into a tough 10-day stretch, starting with a road faceoff against the top team in the conference, Richmond, on Thursday (8 p.m., Peacock). The Hawks, currently third in the A-10, have not beaten the Spiders in Ziegler’s career — their last win over them came on Jan. 12, 2022. But Ziegler believes her team is starting to peak at the right time.

“We know, realistically, we want to peak when we reach March, and we’re about to get there now, so we want to play our best basketball right now,” Ziegler said. “We’ve had some good practices. We’re just playing hot right now.”

In some ways, Griffin believes that the loss of star forward Talya Brugler has helped prepare her team. The senior has been out for the past six games with a hand injury.

“Laura kind of led us in these last couple games. Her, and from a scoring standpoint, [Mackenzie Smith] stepped up,” Griffin said. “But in order to beat the teams in the top of our conference, we’re going to have to have other players step up. And I think a lot of the players got really quality time and were in some situations that maybe they weren’t going to be in as Talya was healthy. And I think that really allowed for us to grow on the court with real-time and real gamelike situations. Aleah Snead comes to mind. Paula Maurina comes to mind.”

Senior guard Julia Nyström also made her season debut against the Ramblers.

“It was awesome. I mean, she’s just an inspiration, her coming back. She’s struggled with the concussions, and just not feeling great, and just to see her smile and participate in the game and contribute,” Griffin said. “She came in and scored four straight points and didn’t look like she missed a beat, so that’s been really refreshing to see. And it was also a morale booster for our team.”

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Ziegler said in having Nyström back, “all of the pieces are falling together.”

“Having Julia back for that Loyola Chicago game just gives us so much more,” Ziegler said. “Having her be part of practices and again, fully, has been great. And that just adds another level of toughness when she’s out there”

The Hawks also will face the Spiders in their regular-season finale. In between, they will face Rhode Island, George Mason, and Dayton. For Ziegler, the focus now is on finally securing a win against the Spiders. And if there is truth to Ziegler and her teammates’ joke about international players performing better in front of their families, Ziegler should have no difficulty in the matchup while her family attends Thursday’s game.

“For me, it’s just trying to get two wins. That’ll be great. That’ll really just top the whole experience with them here,” Ziegler said. “We were just playing with and for each other [on Sunday], so I hope that we can just continue that whole momentum into that game, too.”