As the first winter storm of 2014 blew through the Quad Cities area on Saturday night, Jan. 4, the Carthage College women's basketball team (10-2, 1-0 College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin), ranked 14th in the Dec. 17 in the Women's Basketball Coaches Association/USA Today NCAA Division III poll and 16th in the D3hoops.com poll, opened its CCIW schedule with an 88-52 win over Augustana (4-8, 0-1 CCIW) at the Roy J. Carver Physical Education Center in Rock Island, Ill. The next round of national polls will be released on Tuesday, Jan. 7.
Carthage scored the first 13 points of the game and led, 13-0, at 14:28. The Lady Reds made it a 16-point game, 18-2, at 12:29, before the Vikings closed to within 11 points, 25-14, at 5:38. Eight unanswered points gave Carthage its biggest first-half lead at 19 points, 33-14, at 3:22, and the Lady Reds led by 14 at halftime, 39-25. Augustana got no closer than 15 points in the second period, 46-31, at 15:28. Twelve unanswered points gave Carthage a 27-point lead, 58-31, at 12:39. The lead went 38 points, 88-50, at 1:50, as the Lady Reds cruised to a 36-point decision, 88-52.
Carthage shot 56 percent (38-68), including 6-of-17 from 3-point range, while Augustana shot just 32 percent (20-62), including 3-of-9. The Lady Reds outrebounded the Vikings, 41-36. Carthage was 6-of-13 from the free-throw line, while Augustana connected on nine of 10.
Haley Stercic (Sr., Chicago, Ill./Marist) led Carthage with a game-high 15 points on five-of-nine three pointers. Michelle Wenzel (Sr., Darien, Wis./Delavan-Darien) scored 12 points on six-of-seven field goals, along with a game-high 10 rebounds. Alexis Hahn (So., Itasca, Ill./Roselle-Lake Park) had 12 points, five rebounds and four assists, Taylor Boardman (So., Frankfort, Ill./Lincoln-Way North) 12 points on six-of-nine shooting, Kristi Schmidt (Sr., Bloomington, Ill./Normal-Community) 10 points, and Stephanie Kuzmanic (Sr., Mount Prospect, Ill./Wheeling) chipped in nine points with seven assists. Molly Etheridge led Augustana with 11 points, while Amy Hicks had seven points and nine rebounds.
"Maybe I'm hard to please," admitted Carthage coach Tim Bernero, "but I didn't think we very smooth, offensively. It took a little while to get into a flow. Augustana is not a great perimeter-shooting team, but they're very physical, and we did a really good on them, defensively. We got a big burst to start the second half, and that out the game away. We also got some extra opportunities off offensive rebounds tonight. Augustana did good job of guarding Haley Stercic, but she still got five-of-nine three-pointers and 15 points. I have a nice problem right now with all four of our post players playing really well, and I'm comfortable playing any of them for any amount of time. We have to guard against thinking we're too good. We played a game against Coe s few weeks ago, but all these games now count the same. Games like these are not games you want to lose if you're thinking about conference titles. We need to play at our level all the time, nobody who the opponent is."
Carthage plays host to North Park University (8-4, 1-0 CCIW) on Wednesday, Jan. 8 in a 7 p.m. game at Tarble Arena in Kenosha, Wis.