WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

The #RV Forester women’s basketball team picked up its first W of the season Friday night with a convincing 72-42 road win over Cornerstone at Mol Arena.

Today’s clash is the fourth time these two squads have met in the last decade with Huntington owning the series with a perfect 4-0 record. With this afternoon’s win, HU improves to 1-1 on the year while the loss leaves the Golden Eagles still hungry to get in the win column as three of their four losses have been to Crossroads League foes.

From opening tip, the Foresters took control by scoring six points in the first 90 seconds to jump out to a 6-0 lead. While the Golden Eagles kept within striking distance through much of the first half, there was no looking back for the visitors who never gave up the lead and outscored CU by five in the final three minutes to take a 32-20 advantage into the locker room.

After shooting just 31.4 percent from the field in the first 20 minutes, Culler’s crew connected on over half of their attempts in the second period to blow the game wide open. It was a 15-point difference after three quarters and double that by game’s end.

While the Foresters missed just five shots in the last ten minutes, the glaring difference was at the defensive end of the floor where HU forced nine turnovers on the way to limiting their rattled hosts to just four points.

Sam Hammel was Huntington’s catalyst on both sides of the ball by posting a game-best 18 points and three assists while swiping a game-high five steals on the defensive end. As a team, HU racked up 18 steals. Eighteen was also the Foresters’ number of assists as all but nine of their 27 buckets were assisted.

Maddie Richer scored half of her 12 points from downtown. She also posted three dimes and two steals. Sarah Fryman collected 11 points and added three assists and two steals as well. Brooke Saylor took top rebounding honors with eight, three of which were of the offensive variety.

Taylor Richards and Shelby Nyboer paced Cornerstone with nine points apiece.

HU is back at it tomorrow to face #RV Aquinas at 1:00 p.m.