The Millikin women's basketball team earned a hard-fought College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (CCIW) road victory 61-56 at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois on February 3.

The Big Blue victory gave Millikin head Coach Olivia Lett her 100th career coaching victory.

After scoring 110 points on Wednesday, Millikin had to adjust to a much slower paced game against the Thunder. The game had six lead changes and was tied seven times. The Big Blue lead 15-13 at the end of the first quarter with the game tied at 29-29 at halftime. The game was tied at 41-41 with 2:58 left in the third quarter. Millikin went on a 10-0 run sparked to back-to-back three-pointers from Elyce Knudsen to close out the quarter and led 51-41 heading to the fourth.

Millikin struggled from the free throw line in the fourth quarter allowing the Thunder to make a late run. The Big Blue were 10-18 from the line including missing five in the row in the final quarter. The Thunder pulled as close as three points on two occasions in the final minutes of the game.

Millikin 19-58 (33 percent) from the field. It was the first game this season that the Big Blue shot below 40 percent from the field. The Big Blue were 6-21 from three-point range and 17-27 from the free throw line. Wheaton shot 21-66 (32 percent) from the field and made 5-17 from beyond the arc. Wheaton was 9-12 from the free throw line. Millikin won the rebounding battle 52-39 grabbing 18 offensive rebounds with Sophie Darden pulling down 13.

Knudsen led Millikin with a double double with 27 points and 11 rebounds with all coming on the defensive end of the floor. Darden had 10 points and a team and career high 16 rebounds. It was Darden's 12th double double of the season. Bailey Coffman was one rebound short of her own double double finishing with 11 points and nine rebounds.

Annie Tate led Wheaton with 17 points followed by Jena Hunter with 14 and a team high eight rebounds.

Millikin improves to 18-4, 10-3 while Wheaton falls to 11-10, 4-8.