WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

As fans have come to expect when these two Crossroads League teams square off, defense reigned supreme Wednesday night at Luckey Arena with #RV Indiana Wesleyan (14-5, 5-2) eventually edging out the No. 21 Forester women’s basketball team 59-52.

Points were particularly hard to come by in the opening 20 minutes as evidenced by a halftime score of 25-15 in favor of the Wildcats. It looked like IWU had figured some things out offensively during the break and were poised for the blowout as they spent the first seven minutes of the third quarter padding their lead to 17 at 40-23.

But there is no quit in Culler’s crew. Sarah Fryman’s step back three at the 3:06 mark sparked a 10-0 run to close out the stanza to make for a 40-33 ball game heading into the last ten minutes. Other contributions came from Alexandria Bope whose five-footer found nothing but bottom of the net, Sam Hammel’s 3-pointer and a pair of free tosses by Erica Zook.

Freshman Dazia Drake stretched HU’s spurt to 13 straight points by burying a long ball from the top of the key to open the fourth to whittle the lead to just four points at 40-36. The Wildcats found the answer in Carly Lange who scored five of her team’s next seven points which included a traditional three-point play to boost the lead to 11.

The Foresters went right back to work, this time by way of two more freebies from Zook, a Drake jumper in the lane and two more free throws by Fryman. It made for a two-possession contest at 48-42 with six minutes to go. After holding their hosts scoreless, HU had another good look that they couldn’t get to drop which would have trimmed the difference to four. Unfortunately, the Wildcats didn’t let their next possession go empty by muscling in a timely put back to up the lead to 50-42.

Much to the dismay of Culler and company, the two squads traded blows the rest of the way to make for the seven-point disparity by the final horn.

Hammel scored six of her game-tying 14 points in the final :50 seconds of play. The junior floor general also swiped four steals and registered just as many rebounds. Fryman tossed in 13 points in addition to posting a game-best eight rebounds, three steals and two assists.

Anne Secrest netted 14 points to pace IWU. Lange finished with 11 while Dayton Groninger added ten.

While Huntington outscored their hosts 20-12 in points off TOs, the Wildcats got the best of HU on second chance points 17-6.

The Foresters (15-4, 4-3) have their work cut out for them on Saturday when they host #4 Marian at 1:00 p.m.