WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

After a neck-and-neck first quarter, the #RV Huntington women’s basketball team pulled away from Lincoln College (Ill.) to enjoy an 84-62 win on day one of the HU Classic.

Tonight marked the first time these two teams have met. For the Foresters, they improve to 5-1 while the Linx drop to 3-4.

The two teams battled for the upper hand in the opening ten minutes. After the lead toggled back and forth seven times, Jade Clement had the final say by draining back-to-back threes in the final 40 seconds to give her team the edge, 21-20, at the first break.

The 5-5 guard dropped in three triples in the opening quarter on the way to pouring in a career-best 16 points on 6-for-7 shooting. The Linx stuck around until midway through the second quarter. The four-minute mark proved HU’s final deficit of the night as they trailed 33-32 until Alaina Rongos cashed in an offensive rebound for an old-fashioned three-point play to spur an 11-0 run for a 43-33 tilt with 1:30 left in the quarter.

Four different Foresters fueled the scoring spurt as the half came and went with Huntington boasting a 46-35 advantage. The second half saw Culler’s crew add to the lead by outscoring their visitors in each quarter – widening the gap to 22 by the final buzzer.

Sarah Fryman continued her offensive prowess by netting a game-best 28 points to go along with three assists, two blocks and two steals. Rongos had a breakout night by tossing in a career-best 15 points. Her defense was just as notable as the 5-11 forward was a key cog in limiting the much bigger Linx post players to a combined 14 points.

Sam Hammel was impressive at both ends of the court to finish with a career-tying eight assists and career-tying five steals. She also added five points and three rebounds.

Sara Doi and Cindy In’t Groen shared team-rebounding honors with five each. As a team, HU outrebounded their visitors 45-38 which included pulling down 15 offensive boards. The Foresters have logged double-digit offensive rebounds in five of their six games.

Culler’s crew went 9-for-19 from deep for a clip of 47.4 percent. It proved a higher percentage than from inside the arc where they connected on 22 of their 48 attempts for 45.8 percent.

Day two of the HU Classic will pit Lincoln against Spring Arbor at 1:00 p.m. after which the Foresters will take on IU Southeast at 3:00 p.m.