PARKLAND - Jenele Peterson scored 15 points and handed out nine assists on Saturday to lead the visiting Whitman Missionaries to a 64-48 Northwest Conference women's basketball victory over the Pacific Lutheran Lutes in Olson Auditorium.
The win was Whitman's second in a row in conference play, improving the team's NWC record to 2-2 and its overall mark to 6-7. Pacific Lutheran, meanwhile, suffered its fifth straight loss overall and third in a row in the conference to fall to 4-9 overall and 1-3 in the NWC.
Peterson got Whitman out on the break early and often in the opening half, picking up seven of her assists in the first 20 minutes.
The Missionaries broke away from a 6-6 tie on Kelly Peterson's three-point basket just 4:20 into the game, and they never trailed after that. They took their first double-digit lead at 18-8 on Jenele Peterson's layup with a little over seven minutes gone, and they tied their largest first half advantage on another Jenele Peterson layup with 20 seconds left, making the score 41-24 at the intermission.
In the second half, Whitman led by as many as 18 points, while Pacific Lutheran never got closer than 11 points.
Sarah Anderegg scored 10 points off the bench for the Missionaries, who finished the game shooting 44 percent (23-for-52). Meghan White, Kelly Peterson and Anna Forge all had eight points in the winning cause.
For Pacific Lutheran, Shelly Kilcup led the way with 13 points, followed by Katelyn Smith and Samantha Potter with 12 each and Sara Backstrom with 11. Both Smith and Potter had eight rebounds to lead PLU to a 32-30 advantage in that category, and Backstrom contributed a team-best four assists. The Lutes shot 40 percent (19-for-47) for the game.
PLU returns to action at 6 p.m. Tuesday when it hosts the Puget Sound Loggers in a Northwest Conference contest.
- PLU -