BELLINGHAM, Wash. – A big third quarter had the Western Oregon University women's basketball team back to within striking distance before #6/#7 Western Washington was able to put together a strong fourth quarter to take the 70-52 Great Northwest Athletic Conference victory Thursday night inside Carver Gym.
"I thought we competed hard tonight and played some of the best defense yet this season and did it against a really good team," head coach Holli Howard-Carpenter said. "One of our focus points was rebounding and I thought we did a good job keeping them off the offensive boards while getting in and getting some of our own."
Cali McClave went for a game and season-high 16 points, reaching double-figures for the third time this season. She went 5-12 from the field, including a 3-6 clip from three and 3-4 at the foul line. McClave added three rebounds and a steal in 29 minutes.
"Cali played extremely hard and had a solid night on both ends. Alexis and Makenna gave us good minutes as well despite being in foul trouble," Howard-Carpenter added.
The third quarter helped put WOU (4-4, 0-1 GNAC) right back into the conversation when they trailed by 17 at the half and then outscored WWU (10-0, 2-0 GNAC) 19-10 in the third frame. The Vikings countered with the first five points of the fourth quarter and held a 21-11 edge in the final quarter to claim the win.
In addition to the big game from Cali McClave, Alexis Wright added nine points on 4-6 shooting. Tresai McCarver and Madisyn Clark each added seven points with McCarver collecting five rebounds, two assists and three steals in 29 minutes. Clark had two assists, a block and a rebound. Makenna Gambee gave the Wolves five to score at least six points, along with grabbing two rebounds and two assists. Meadow Aragon led the team in rebounds with eight and sent back two blocks.
The Vikings scored the first five points of the game before a layup by Clark just over three minutes in had WOU on the board. After falling behind 8-2, the Wolves got back to within four a couple of times following a Kaelin Williams-Kennedy basket and free throw by Wright left WWU with a 13-9 lead. The Vikings closed the first quarter strong going on a 6-0 run for the 19-9 lead.
WOU wasn't able to cut into the lead much in the second quarter and despite tallying 13 points, the Vikings recorded 20 to hold a 39-22 lead at the half.
The Wolves responded to start the second half and got right back into the game. Wright connected on a layup 26 seconds in. After WWU answered with a layup, a layup by Clark helped ignite an 8-0 run to cut the lead into single digits. Cali McClave added a three-pointer and after she added a free throw a little later on, two free throws by Gambee had the WWU lead at 41-32.
The lead was down to seven with back-to-back layups from Amber Winkler and Gambee trimmed the lead to 43-36. After WWU came back to move the lead back into double-digits, Clark finished the quarter strong connecting on a triple to leave the WWU lead at 49-41 heading into the final frame.
The Vikings started the final 10 minutes strong hitting a three-pointer and a layup to move the lead back to 13. A Wright layup helped snap the 5-0 run and had the lead down to 11, but that would be as close as the Wolves would get the rest of the way.
Mollie Olson led the Vikings with 12 points, while Carley Zaragoza added 11 points and five rebounds. Emma Duff went for nine points, seven rebounds, three steals, three blocks and two assists.
WOU went 18-59 (30.5) from the field, 4-14 (28.6) from three and 12-16 (75) at the foul line. WWU went 26-54 (48.1) from the field, 5-16 (31.3) from three and 13-18 (72.2) from the foul line. The Wolves held a 17-4 edge in second chance points. WWU held the advantage in points off turnovers (24-15), bench points (29-11), points in the paint (38-28) and fastbreak points (8-5).
WOU will continue the road trip traveling to Canada on Saturday to face Simon Fraser starting at 1 p.m.
