The Carthage College women's basketball team (20-4, 12-1 College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin), tied for 32nd place in the Feb. 12 "D3hoops.com" poll and ranked 30th in the Feb. 12 Women's Basketball Coaches Association/USA Today/ESPN NCAA Division III poll, clinched an outright CCIW title on Saturday, Feb. 16 with a 47-44 win over No. 36 Wheaton College (Ill., 20-4, 10-3 CCIW) at King Arena in Wheaton, Ill.
The conference championship is the second for Carthage, with the other a co-championship with Millikin University in 1996. With the win, the Lady Reds will play host to the CCIW Women's Basketball Tournament on Friday-Saturday, Feb. 22-23 at Tarble Arena in Kenosha, Wis.
Carthage led by a point at halftime, 22-21, in a low-scoring first half. The Lady Reds inched out to a six-point lead, 36-30, at 8:36 second half. Carthage made it a an eight-point lead, 42-34 at 5:20. A three-pointer by Brooke Olson at 4:01 cut the lead to five points, 42-37, but a jumper by Michelle Wenzel at 3:31 put Carthage back up by seven points, 44-37. The Thunder trimmed the lead to 44-39 at 3:16, and a jumper by Ellie Zeller at 2:19 made it 44-41. Carthage's Wenzel missed a jumper at 1:29, Wheaton's Lauren Graham missed a jumper with 54 seconds to play and Carthage's Cailee Corcoran misfired with 39 seconds to go.
Stephanie Kuzmanic picked up a foul with 27 seconds to go, and Olson connected on the front end of a one-and-and one free throw to make it 44-42. Olson fouled Kuzmanic with 24 seconds left, and Kuzmanic drilled both free throws to up the lead to 46-42. Michelle Wenzel hit one free throw with seven seconds remaining to make it a 47-42 game. Olson connected on two free throws with one tick on the clock to close out the scoring at 47-44.
Carthage shot 33 percent (17-51), including four-of-14 three-pointers, while Wheaton (Ill.) shot 30 percent (16-53), also including four-of-14 from three-point range. The rebounding battle was even at 37 each. Cailee Corcoran (Sr., Oak Lawn, Ill./Chicago-Marist) led the Lady Reds with a game-high 16 points on six-of-14 field goals, along with four-of-five free throws and eight rebounds. Michelle Wenzel (Jr., Darien, Ill./Delavan-Darien) came off the bench to score nine points with five rebounds. Stephanie Kuzmanic (Jr., Mount Prospect, Ill./Wheeling) had eight points, seven rebounds and four assists. Brooke Olson led the Thunder with 15 points and five boards.
"Conference championships are hard to do," said Carthage coach Tim Bernero. "It wasn't pretty, but we got Brooke Olson out of her comfort zone behind the screen. We stayed disciplined and made them work for everything. It wasn't artistic, by any means, but we got it done. We seemed to make decisions kind of slow, and it just didn't flow, except for five minutes in the second half, which may have been the difference. We got contributions from a lot of people. There are no for sures after this next week. We want to win the conference tournament and get the automatic NCAA bid. I think we've done well enough to get a berth anyway, but I'd rather not leave that to chance."
Carthage closes out the CCIW regular season on Tuesday, Feb. 19 by playing host to North Park University (14-10, 5-8 CCIW) in a 7:30 p.m. game at Tarble Arena in Kenosha, Wis.