GREENCASTLE, Ind. – The No. 25-ranked Illinois Wesleyan women's basketball team escaped with a 60-59 win over Rose-Hulman in the third place game of the Midwest Challenge on Sunday, Nov. 26, hosted by DePauw University at Greencastle, Ind.
 
The Titans improved to 3-2 this season while the Engineers slipped to 2-3.
 
Junior Maddie Merritt scored a layup with 8 seconds left on an assist from senior Rebekah Ehresman to stake IWU to a 60-58 lead. An IWU foul with no time remaining allowed the Engineers to have a pair of free throws to tie the game and force overtime but the first free throw was missed.

Merritt led the Titans with 12 points while freshman Raven Hughes added 10 points and grabbed seven rebounds and senior Molly McGraw scored 10 points. Sophomore Sydney Shanks shared high rebound honors with seven as the Titans lost the battle of the boards, 36-33.

The Titans led 16-14 after one quarter and built up a 34-22 lead in the second quarter before Rose-Hulman scored the final 10 points in the last 3:09 of the first half to make it 34-32 at intermission.
IWU led 47-45 after three quarters and the game was tied at 56-56 with 3:18 to play and 58-58 with 38 seconds remaining.

Rose-Hulman admitted to 31 turnovers and the Titans committed 17 turnovers and had 16 steals. The Engineers shot 50 percent from the field (21 of 42) while Illinois Wesleyan shot 34.8 percent (24 of 69) and had 20 assists leading to those 24 buckets. Ehresman and Kelsey Walsberg each had a team-high four assists.
 
What's Next?
Illinois Wesleyan will play next on Saturday, Dec. 2 in a 5 p.m. game against the Carthage Lady Reds to open College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin play for 2017-18.

NOTES: Go here for Midwest Challenge history ... McGraw now has 1,242 career points and is No. 8 all-time at Illinois Wesleyan. Just ahead of her is Sara Seebruch, who scored 1,288 from 1995-99. The record is held by Traci Butler (1,632, 1992-96) ... Ehresman has 979 career points, 21 points short of becoming the 22nd Illinois Wesleyan player with more than 1,000 points. She is No. 21 in 3-pointers made (77), No. 12 in free throws (244) and No. 21 in rebounds (477) ... Merritt has made 204 of 241 free throws for a career free throw percentage of .846, currently No. 1 all-time and ahead of .835 by Mallory Heydorn (152 of 182, 2005-09) ... Go here for IWU women's basketball records.