CWRU Women’s Basketball Ends Season with ‘Senior Day’ Win over CMU

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The Case Western Reserve University women's basketball team wrapped-up its 2018-19 season on Saturday afternoon with a 69-52 win over Carnegie Mellon University on 'Senior Day' at Horsburgh Gymnasium in Cleveland, Ohio.

With the win, the Spartans end their 2018-19 campaign with a 15-10 overall record, and finished in fourth place in the University Athletic Association with a 7-7 league record.  Carnegie Mellon dropped to 12-13 overall, with a 3-11 UAA mark to end their season.

In the final games of their collegiate careers, graduate student forward Kara Hageman and senior guard/ forward Hillary Hellmann combined for 37 points and 31 rebounds.  Hageman finished the game with a team-high 22 points to match her season-best, and set a new career-high with 16 rebounds.  She shot eight-of-11 overall from the field and a perfect three-for-three from long range, while also registering a season-high five assists and three steals.

Hellmann finished the game with 15 points and a career-high 15 rebounds, shooting six-of-17 overall and three-of-nine from behind the arc, while also picking up a pair of assists and a block.  Sophomore forward Emma Cain added 12 points on a four-of-five shooting effort, including a three-pointer on the first long-range attempt of her career.

After giving up the first basket of the game, Cain hit a jumper to tie the score at 2-2, and a three by junior guard Alicia Marie-Gonzales gave CWRU a lead it would hold for the remainder of the contest.  Hellmann closed out the quarter with a rebound and a drive all the way down court, finishing with a layup to put CWRU ahead 21-13 after the first 10 minutes of the game.

The Spartans would lead by as many as nine points in the second quarter, and headed into halftime with a 29-22 advantage over the Tartans.  A layup by Cain put CWRU ahead by 10, 35-25, with 5:49 to play in the period, but the Tartans worked their way back into the game, trimming the lead to two with 19 seconds left in the period, before Cain connected on her first career three-pointer at the buzzer to put Case Western Reserve back in front by five points, 44-39, heading into the final period.

Carnegie Mellon again cut CWRU's lead down to two points early in the fourth quarter, before the Spartans launched on a 10-0 run, capped off by a layup by Cain with 6:26 remaining that put the team ahead 56-44.  A three-pointer by Hellmann with 2:15 remaining gave the Spartans their largest lead of the game, 69-47, en route to the 17-point win.

CWRU finished the game shooting 44.8% (26-for-58) and 47.6% (10-for-21) from three-point range.  The Spartans finished the game with a 47-31 edge in rebounds and a 26-16 advantage in points in the paint.

Carnegie Mellon was led by Laurel Pereira, who came off the bench to score 25 points.

Saturday was also the final career game for both Hellmann and Hageman.  Hellmann ended her career with 1,593 points, second all-time in program history, while Hageman's 1,425 career points rank as the rank as the third-most ever by a Spartan women's basketball player.

In addition, both Alexis Amburgey and Darby Kreienberg celebrated 'Senior Day' as well.  The duo each spent their first three years at CWRU as members of the women's basketball team, before serving as student-assistant coaches this season.

The Spartans' 15 wins to end the season mark the fifth time in program history that the team has won 15 or more games in a campaign, and the first time since 2012-13.