The Carthage College women's basketball team (20-3, 11-1 College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin), ranked ninth in D3hoops.com Top 25 and second in the Feb. 12 NCAA Division III Central Region poll, saw its school-record 13-game winning streak snapped on Saturday, Feb. 15 with a 69-57 loss to Illinois Wesleyan University (16-7, 10-2 CCIW) at the Shirk Center in Bloomington, Ill. A win over the Titans would have clinched the league title for the Lady Reds.
Illinois Wesleyan took a 15-9 loss at 15:07, but Carthage came back to take a 17-15 edge at 11:09. The Lady Reds led by six points, 30-24, at 2:48 and took a six-point halftime lead, 32-26. Carthage extended its lead to 11 points, 41-30, at 14:49, but Illinois Wesleyan roared back with a 22-8 run to take a three-point lead, 52-49, at 6:47 on a three-pointer by Lexi Baltes. The Titans began to inch away, taking a six-point lead, 59-53, at 4:06 on a three-point play by Kasey Reaber, and then going up by eight, 61-53, at 3:24. The Titans' lead went to 10 points, 63-53, at 2:54 en route to a 12-point decision, 69-57.
Illinois Wesleyan shot 37 percent (25-68), including five-of-18 three-pointers, while Carthage shot 43 percent (21-49), including just one-of-15 from three-point range. The Titans got to free-throw line 18 times and made 14, while the Lady Reds connected on 14-of-23. Illinois Wesleyan had a narrow, 40-39 rebounding edge. Carthage turned the ball over 25 times to 18 for Illinois Wesleyan, with the Titans scoring 30 points on the 25 Lady Reds turnovers.
Shelby Jackson led the Titans with 21 points on nine-of-22 field goals, while Colleen McMahon had 14 points. Carthage's Michelle Wenzel (Sr., Darien, Wis./Delavan-Darien) scored a game-high 24 points on 12-of-17 shooting, along with nine rebounds. Kristi Schmidt (Sr., Bloomington, Ill./Normal-Community) had a "double-double" with 16 points and a game-high 11 rebounds.
"We stopped doing anything that made sense," admitted Carthage coach Tim Bernero. "We were hurting them inside early, but we stopped doing that. Their press bothered us more than it did last time, and we didn't make good choices. We put ourselves in trouble, and we started doing stuff was not sound basketball. We dribbled ourselves into bad spots and did a bad job of reversing the ball. As a result, Illinois Wesleyan got the momentum, and things got away from us. They got way too many points off our turnovers—you can't do that. Now you just worry about North Park, and as usual, we only concern ourselves with the next game."
Carthage travels to Chicago on Wednesday, Feb. 19 to play conference-opponent North Park University (11-11, 4-7 CCIW) in a 7 p.m. game at the North Park Gym.