The Saint Louis University women’s basketball team came away from a two-game weekend series with a split in Atlantic-10 conference play. After dropping their Friday match-up at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, the Billikens claimed their first A-10 victory against Duquesne on Sunday.
The Bills and the Hawks traded baskets through the first 13 minutes of the game, but SLU could only watch as St. Joe’s played a poor host, running 14 unanswered points to close the half.
St. Joe’s seemingly had enough after seeing Marquita McFarland put back an offensive rebound with 6:59 left in the first half, the last baskets they allowed before the break. SLU shot 33 percent and helped the Hawks charge to a 33-20 halftime lead.
SLU bounced back and broke the drought right out of the locker room, running the score to 37-27 within the first three minutes, but the Billiken surge would not be enough. St. Joe’s responded by dropping five straight points before breaking the game open with a 10-2 run midway through the second half. The run pushed St. Joe’s (12-4, 4-1 A-10) on to their 69-50 win.
The Bills could only boast one double-digit scorer in the game, as Tyler McIlwraith put in 18 points in 34 minutes, despite battling the flu. McIlwraith was the only Billiken to attempt more than seven shots and more than one trey. She attempted 14 from the floor, including four from behind the arc.
Faith Schutte of St. Joe’s led all scorers with 19 points.
“We were close the whole half before they went on a [14]-0 run,” McIlwraith said. “We just couldn’t get back in the game. We also had trouble defending the three, which is something new for us after New Year’s. We’ve spent a lot of practice time working on that.”
Hoping to prevent the weekend from going to a loss, SLU returned home to play host to the visiting Duquesne Dukes on Sunday. The Dukes (6-10, 1-4 A-10) found their way into the SLU history books, as they became the first team to lose to the Bills in the A-10. The win also tied the Bills’ 2004-2005 season total of four victories.
SLU reversed their karma by dropping 32 points on 13 for 26 shooting in the first half while holding the Dukes to just 16 points.
The Bills maintained their lead early in the second half and even saw it climb to 17. The Dukes, however, made a 19-7 run to move the score to 55-50 in favor of SLU. McFarland drained two free throws and Hayley Leake dropped in two more points to put the nails in the Dukes’ coffin.
McIlwraith led all scorers in the game with 17 points and grabbed a team-high six rebounds, while Heather King added 15 points and McFarland chipped in with 10. Rachel Diener bested a career high by dishing out seven assists.
“We wanted to focus on defending the three,” McIlwraith said. “Our goal was to hold them to three threes in the game. They hit 40 percent of their treys, but ended up with three in the last few minutes.”
SLU will play host to Charlotte (10-5, 3-1 A-10) in their only game in the upcoming week. The Bills (4-12, 1-4 A-10) and 49ers are familiar foes; both programs played in Conference USA before making the move to the A-10 for the 2005-2006 season. Charlotte boasts the top-scoring offense in the A-10, averaging 75.6 points, while the Bills give up an average of 68.2 points per game. The SLU mark is the second-worst in the A-10. Tip off is at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 22 at the Bauman-Eberhardt Center.
“Charlotte is in the top four in the Conference and would love to get an upset,” McIlwraith said. “I think we have an advantage against other teams, having played them before.”
