By: The 83-71 loss for Illinois College on Tuesday night eliminates the Lady Blues from MWC Tournament contention.
Box Score
MONMOUTH, Ill. – Though the Illinois College women's basketball team held a six-point lead at the half, Monmouth College rallied in the third quarter and came away with an 83-71 win on Tuesday night, eliminating IC from Midwest Conference Tournament contention. The Lady Blues (8-16, 6-9 MWC) will conclude the regular season on Saturday with Senior Day at Sherman Gymnasium.
The night started well for Illinois College, who took a 39-33 lead at the half after a closely contested first quarter. The first 10 minutes had nine lead changes and four ties, ultimately ending with a 20-20 deadlock.
Sydney Lett had six of IC's first 12 points. Later in the quarter,
Bailey Paskach capped a 7-0 run for the Lady Blues with an old-fashioned three-point play to make it 19-14. The Scots scored two baskets in the final minute of the quarter to tie it up again heading to the second.
Megan Price opened the scoring with a three-pointer and
Shannen Quehl gave Illinois College a five-point lead at 25-20. The lead grew to seven on a short
Shannon Propst jumper, 33-26, until Monmouth responded with a 7-0 run to knot the score back up at 33-33. The Lady Blues would hold the Scots scoreless over the final four minutes of the half however, scoring six unanswered on baskets from
Grace Yaunches,
Darian Session and
McKenzie Skaggs.
Carley Turnbull scored the first six Monmouth points of the third quarter, bringing the Scots within three. Tia Robertson took over in the middle portion of the quarter, scoring on three straight possessions to put Monmouth ahead, 47-46. Turnbull then closed the quarter with a three-pointer to make it 57-50 in favor of the home team going to the final quarter of play.
Buckets from Lett and
Brielle Greenleaf to start the fourth quarter got Illinois College back to within three at 57-54. After a Monmouth timeout, the Scots roared back with consecutive scores, ultimately stretching the lead to 12, 68-56, on a Robertson jumper with 5:34 left. The Lady Blues tried to recover, with Greenleaf connecting on a trey and
Sydney Himmelman hitting a short jumper, but that only made it 68-61 with 3:38 to go. A Yvonne Ornelas three on the other end pushed the lead back to double-digits and time worked against the Lady Blues down the stretch.
Greenleaf ended with a team-high 17 points. Quehl had 13 and Price added 10 off the bench. Himmelman did a little bit of everything for the Lady Blues on the night with two points, nine rebounds, five blocks and three assists. The last player to register that many blocks in a game for IC was Lisa Imel back on Jan. 18, 2005 in a game at Monmouth.
Illinois College wraps up the 2017-18 regular season on Feb. 17, hosting Senior Day at 3 p.m. against Grinnell College. The Lady Blues will honor
Melissa Solorio at the conclusion of that day's contest.
