MT. CARMEL, Ill. -- This will be a busy – and important – weekend for the 22nd-ranked Wabash Valley women's basketball team.
With nine straight wins under their belts after Wednesday's 83-54 Great Rivers Athletic Conference victory at Rend Lake, the Lady Warriors have games slotted on both Saturday and Sunday.
First up, the final home game before Christmas at Spencer Sports Center, a Saturday league affair with Southwestern (7-2, 1-1 in GRAC), scheduled for 1 p.m. CST. WVC will bring a 102-game GRAC winning streak and a 91-game home-court winning streak into the fray.
Then, on Sunday, a major Midwest matchup against 14th-ranked Moberly Area, Mo. (11-1) in a shootout at St. Louis CC, also with a 1 p.m. tipoff.
In the midweek game at Ina, a chunk of the Lady Warriors' final 49-point margin came in the fourth quarter when they outscored Rend Lake (6-3, 2-1), 23-2. It was a collective effort throughout, with 10 players playing at least 10 minutes, and 10 players scoring points.
The Lady Warriors did struggle, though, with shooting. Entering as the country's sixth best field goal shooting team, the visitors fired away at a below-average rate of 39.7 percent on 31-of-78 accuracy.
And at the free throw line, WVC hit just 18-of-35 for 51.4 percent.
A saving grace was the arc line, however, where the Lady Warriors were slightly above par at 30.8 percent of their 3-point attempts (4-of-13).
Madison Roshelle led Wabash Valley (9-1, 3-0) with 17 points. She was 8-of-13 from the floor, adding five rebounds and a team-high five steals to the cause.
Two other players finished in double figures: Shaulana Wagner with 12 points and Brooklyn Gray with 10.
Zhordan Shannon had 12 rebounds (seven of them on the offensive end), the first Lady Warrior to hit double figures on the glass this season.
After this weekend, the Lady Warriors have two road games left before breaking camp for the holidays, a GRAC game at Kaskaskia (7-5, 2-0) on Dec. 17, and a non-conference game at Danville Area (4-3) two days later.