NAPERVILLE, Ill. - Holding a 38-33 halftime lead, the Illinois Wesleyan women's basketball team eventually ran out of gas en route to an 87-81 loss at North Central at Gregory Arena on Saturday, Feb. 6.
IWU is now 13-9 on the season and 8-3 in the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin while the host Cardinals improved to .500 on the season at 11-11 overall and 5-6 in the CCIW.
A back and forth first quarter saw the Titans pull ahead by a score of 17-16 and outscore North Central in the second period by a score of 21-17. The Cardinals closed the gap to 61-59 heading into the fourth quarter and use a 12-2 run to open the period. Trailing by a score of 84-71 with 3:29 remaining in the game, Illinois Wesleyan chipped away at the deficit before running out of time to complete the comeback.
Junior
Alina Lehocky (12 points, 11 rebounds) and freshman
Maddie Merritt (10 points, 10 rebounds) both recorded double-doubles in the game while sophomore
Molly McGraw scored a game-high 17 points. Junior guard
Amanda Kelly fell just short of a recording a double-double, finishing with 10 points and eight rebounds while adding a career-high six assists.
North Central was led by 17 points from Therese Petterson and Jaime Cuny who had 13 rebounds and nine blocked shots.
"I thought North Central played an extremely physical game," IWU head coach
Mia Smith told WJBC Radio in a postgame interview. "Sometimes it didn't look like basketball and was more like a free-for-all. The tempo of a game can change so quickly against a team like North Central and they hit some uncontested 3-point shots that buried us. We just can't give up six- or seven-point leads and they got their runs in bad times for us."
Illinois Wesleyan connected on only three of 14 (21.4%) of 3-point field goal attempts while North Central made 16 of 43 (37.2%). The Titans held a 62-41 advantage on the boards and scored 50 points in the paint. Turnovers played a big factor in the game as Illinois Wesleyan forced 21 leading to 15 points while North Central forced 25 which equated in 23 points.
What's Next?IWU closes out the regular season with a three-game homestand beginnng with a contest against Augustana on Wednesday, Feb. 10 ... Illinois Wesleyan eked out a 73-70 victory in the earlier game this season in Rock Island on Jan. 20 ... The Vikings are coming off a 72-65 home court loss to Carthage on Saturday and are now 10-12 and 5-6 in the CCIW.
