JACKSONVILLE, Ill. – The Illinois College women's basketball team trailed early on, but broke open a one-point game at the half with a strong second-half performance to top MacMurray College, 67-55, on Tuesday night at MacMurray's Bill Wall Gym. The victory lifts IC to 3-3 on the season.
Following
Krista Bass' bucket to start the game, MacMurray answered with a 7-0 run, giving the home side the first of four five-point leads it would have in the game. The Highlanders led, 20-17, after one quarter of action and took its final five-point lead at 22-17. Near the close of the first half,
Grace Yaunches connected on a three-pointer and a
Lilly Pepper free throw put Illinois College ahead, 32-31, at the intermission.
With the score knotted at 33-33 early on in the third quarter, Illinois College unspooled an 18-7 stretch over six minutes of game action. Pepper hit three free throws to start the run and give the Lady Blues the lead for good, while
Junie Zirkelbach made a layup to end the run. A brief spurt from MacMurray brought it back to 53-46 entering the final quarter of play.
The critical series of plays in the fourth quarter came with Illinois College ahead, 57-51. MacMurray had multiple looks at three-pointers that would have cut the deficit in half, but the Highlanders failed to connect on all of them. On the other end of the floor, Pepper made consecutive layups to push IC's lead to double-digits for the first time at 61-51. After the Highlanders cut it to eight, Yaunches answered with a dagger three-pointer to put the game out of reach with less than four minutes remaining. That was followed by a leak-out and a layup from Zirkelbach to go up by 13 points with less than three minutes remaining to seal it.
Yaunches shared game-high scoring honors with 15 points and also had a game-high five assists. Zirkelbach came off the bench for 12 points, while Pepper ended with a double-double of 11 points and 10 rebounds and
Megan Price added 10 points of her own.
Illinois College closes out non-conference play at home on Sunday afternoon, hosting Millikin University at 1 p.m.
