Wheaton, Ill.- The Wheaton women's basketball team fended off a strong effort from the University of Chicago on Wednesday night to win its fifth consecutive game with a 79-72 win over the Maroons. Wheaton, ranked 19th in this week's D3Hoops.com Top-25 poll, improved to 6-1 on the season while Chicago fell to 3-3. Katie McDaniels, led all scorers with 26 points and Maris Hovee grabbed 20 rebounds for the second consecutive game to go along with 11 points, seven blocks and four assists.
Wheaton struggled from the three-point line, shooting just 2-13 (15.4%) but shot a strong 43.1% (28-65) from the field overall. Wheaton was 21-27 (77.8%) from the free throw line. The Maroons shot 40% (26-65) from the field and 10-26 (38.5%) from the three-point line while going 10-14 (71.4%) from the charity stripe.
The game opened as a back and forth affair with Chicago tying the game at 14 apiece just over six minutes in. From that point, Wheaton ran off the next 12 points of the game, including scoring contibutions from five different players to build its biggest lead of the night at 26-14 with 11:04 remaining in the first half. The Maroons were able to chip away at the lead and widdle the deficit down to 38-32 at the halftime break.
Katie McDaniels led four Thunder scorers in double-digits with 26 points to go with eight rebounds and five assists. Maris Hovee scored 11 points and Moriah Reeves and Ellie Zeller each finished with 10 points. Lauren Graham scored nine points to go with eight rebounds. Julie Muguira led the Maroons with 16 points.
Wheaton will continue their home stand on Saturday when the Thunder host Roosevelt University at 2 PM.
Note Worthy: Maris Hovee's 20 rebounds was just the sixth time in program history that a player had reached the 20-rebound plateau...Hovee set a new school record with 22 rebounds in Wheaton's win over UW-Whitewater on Saturday...this was the first back-to-back 20 rebound performance in school history.