WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

The Forester women’s basketball team cruised to a 59-38 win over Goshen College Wednesday night at Platt Arena. The W completes the series sweep over GC with Huntington’s first win, a 51-44 decision, dating back to November 21.

While it was a game that favored the hosts the entire evening, the start was slow going for both teams as the scoreboard read just 6-5 through the first eight minutes. HU finally pieced together a little spurt in the final two minutes of the quarter which included a long ball from Maddie Richer to give Culler’s crew a slim 13-7 lead after the first break.

The Foresters carried that momentum into the second quarter where Sam Hammel found Cindy In’t Groen for a quick bucket and then Casey Morton buried one from the top of the key to up the lead to 11, 18-7, within the first 45 seconds of the frame. Behind 13 first half points from Sarah Fryman, Culler’s crew took a 34-21 lead into intermission.

It was smooth sailing after that as Huntington’s advantage never dipped below nine points – with a nine-point spread happening just briefly on two occasions early in the third. Hailey Krewald’s second triple of the half at the 7:35 mark of the fourth gave Huntington its largest lead of the night at 55-31 before they cruised to the 21-point win with every Forester getting to see the floor.

Thirty-eight points is the lowest output for the Maple Leafs this season as the Foresters held them to 17 field goals on 28.3 percent shooting. Neither team got to the line much with HU outscoring GC 8-1 from the stripe in a game that took less than 90 minutes to play.

Behind Brooke Saylor’s 14 rebounds, the Foresters monopolized the boards 52-30 which included 21 offensive boards that resulted in 23 second chance points.

Fryman finished with a game-best 20 points as HU’s only double-digit scorer. Richer and Krewald each finished with eight points each. Richer also handed out a game-best four dimes.

Sydney Stein topped Goshen with 13 points, all of which came in the opening 20 minutes.

With this win, the Foresters improve to 12-8 overall, 5-4 in the league while the Maple Leafs (1-20, 0-9) are left still searching for their first conference win. HU hits the road on Saturday to face Mount Vernon for the first time this season. Tip-off is slated for 1:00 p.m.