The Carthage College women's basketball team (17-9, 8-6, 4th College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin), the fourth seed, lost to top-seeded and No. 7 Illinois Wesleyan (22-4, 13-1), 77-69, on Friday, Feb. 25 in a semifinal game at the CCIW Women's Basketball Tournament at the Illinois Wesleyan Shirk Center in Bloomington, Ill.
Second-seeded Wheaton College (Ill., 19-6, 11-3) edged third-seeded Millikin (17-9, 9-5), 58-55, in the earlier semifinal game Illinois Wesleyan will take on Wheaton (Ill.) in the Saturday, Feb. 26 championship game, beginning at 7 p.m. This was Carthage's eighth tournament appearance since the event began in 2003 and its sixth in a row. The Lady Reds missed qualifying only for the 2005 event. Carthage defeated the Illinois Wesleyan, 63-55, on Jan. 29 at the Shirk Center.
Illinois Wesleyan opened up a 10-point lead, 23-13, at 10:05 first half. The Titans still led by 10, 28-18, at 6:21 before the Lady Reds closed the gap to two points, 31-29, at 1:08. Illinois Wesleyan led by six points at halftime, 35-29. Stacey Arlis led Illinois Wesleyan with 20 points and 11 rebounds in the first half, as the Titans out-rebounded the Lady Reds, 30-17, in the first period, including 15-5 on the offensive boards. IWU took its biggest lead of the game at 14 points, 45-31, at 17:05. Carthage got it back to three points, 50-47, at 11:44, and it was three points again, 55-52, at 9:47. The Lady Reds inched to within two, 61-59, at 7:43. Trailing by three, 72-69, Carthage's Diana Jacklin missed a jumper at 1:19. Hope Schulte scored at 1:02 to give the Titans a five-point lead, 74-69, as IWU went on to win by eight, 77-69.
Illinois Wesleyan shot just 40 percent (29-73), including seven-of-27 from three-point range, while Carthage shot 42 percent (22-52), including four-of-13 three-pointers. The Titans enjoyed a whopping, 54-31 rebounding advantage, including 28-10 on the offensive boards. Four Illinois Wesleyan players scored in double figures. Stacey Arlis scored a game-high 24 points on nine-of-14 field goals, along with six-of-eight free throws and 14 rebounds. Olivia Lett had 21 points, Hope Schulte 12, and Nikki Preston added 10 points. Kristi Schmidt (Fr., Bloomington, Ill./Normal-Community) came off the bench to lead the Lady Reds with 18 points on six-of-eight shooting. Heather Gilmore (Sr., Des Moines, Iowa/Pleasant Hill-Southeast Polk) had 16 points, five rebounds and four assists, and Diana Jacklin (Jr., Berwyn, Ill./Morton West) added 13 points.
"We had a good plan," said Carthage coach Tim Bernero. "We made some adjustments at halftime, but we came out kind of empty in early in the second half. The 'want-to' was there, but Illinois Wesleyan got done what they wanted to do more than we did. Their people beat our people, and their coach beat our coach. Stacey Arlis had four points against us in the Jan. 29 game, so give her credit for what she did tonight. We were really good in spurts and really inconsistent in others, which is a microcosm of how our season went. I knew the rebounding would be the key factor, and it was. They just seemed quicker to the ball than we did. If we play that part of the game to a standstill, I think we win this game. We did some things well in this game. We out-shot them, and we got to the free throw line enough. We have some things to correct for next season. We were 17-9—that's a nice season. Maybe we got ahead of ourselves after getting to the NCAA "sweet 16" last year. Maybe we thought it was our right to go back there again. It's frustrating, because we don't get this opportunity again this year. At the age of our kids, you sometimes forget that there are limited opportunities. You try to tell your kids that, and I think we could have done a better job of trying to impart that on them. It should be a good game between Illinois Wesleyan and Wheaton—I just wish Carthage was playing."
In the first semifinal game, Wheaton (Ill.) had a pair of nine-point leads over Millikin, 25-13 at 4:14 first half, and 36-27 at 17:36 second period. The Big Blue were leading, 55-53, before Wheaton took the lead to stay, 56-55, on a three-pointer by Elisabeth Potts with 17 seconds to. The Thunder's Laura Karsten, this year's CCIW "most outstanding player," was fouled on a steal attempt and made two free throws to make it 58-55 with 14.5 seconds to go. The Big Blue's Julia Robert missed a three-pointer with four seconds remaining.