MT. CARMEL, Ill. -- Wabash Valley has clinched no worse than a tie for the Great Rivers Athletic Conference women's basketball championship.
As it turns out, the top four teams in the league standings all squared off on Wednesday night. WVC eliminated Rend Lake from the race with a 119-45 victory at Spencer Sports Center. The win improved the 12th-ranked Lady Warriors to 11-0 (23-1 overall) in the GRAC, while Rend Lake fell to 7-4 (12-9) with only three league games remaining.
Southwestern helped the Lady Warrior cause by eliminating Kaskaskia with a 70-61 win.
That leaves Shawnee, in fifth place in the league standings on percentage points at 5-3, as the only team other than Wabash Valley still in contention for the crown.
If WVC can nail down the outright title with a win over Kaskaskia on Saturday afternoon, it would be the team's seventh consecutive GRAC crown.
To the casual observer of the game, all seemed right for the Lady Warriors. They led Rend Lake 37-13 at the end of the first quarter and had a solid inside and out offensive punch going.
But Lady Warrior players knew otherwise.
"No, we were kind of slow on defense, just not locked in," said guard Jade Salters, who finished with 23 points, one of four Lady Warriors over the 20-mark on the game.
Head coach Luke Scheidecker saw it too.
"It's the little details that a lot of people don't notice, but we all notice it because that is what we do," he said. "There is a standard that we have here within the program and a standard is a standard."
Most of the time, the best players the Lady Warriors see are the ones staring back at them during practice. This is a team that does not appear interested in points or margins of victory. They are seeking nothing short of perfection, which is why they seem to play at a higher level throughout each game.
"That is a big point of emphasis for us is that we have to compete hard in practice every day and get good reps and good looks against each other," Scheidecker said.
The reputation the Lady Warriors have as a hard-working, relentless team begins at the top, says Walters.
"(The coach) does not let us let up," she said. "Even when you do something wrong, but it works it's still not right."
Salters suffered an ankle injury that kept her out for the early portion of the season but now looks to be rounding back into shape.
"We knew Jade had it in her," Scheidecker said. "We have been waiting for her to get back to her old self and show other teams what she is capable of doing."
Joining Salters in the 20-plus scoring column were: Shaulana Wagner and Chanteese Craig, sharing game-high honors with 26 points apiece, and Brooklyn Gray with 22.
Craig helped the Lady Warriors get out of the gate early, with 11 first-quarter points. She added 10 more in the third period.
"She played great for us," said Scheidecker of Craig, a 6-foot-2 sophomore from Fort Wayne, Indiana. "Physically she just dominated inside and is a matchup problem for a lot of people inside."
A humble Craig said that as well as things went for her on offense, she still has work to do on defense.
"It was all on my teammates. They passed me the ball and all I had to do was finish," she said. "I did pretty well on offense, but I have to get better on defense and help my teammates out more."
The Lady Warriors, winners of 110 straight GRAC games, led 67-22 at halftime, and 93-37 at the end of the third period.
Rend Lake was led in scoring by Lezhauria Williams with 13 points.
The game had been rescheduled from last week and thus became the first of a three-game homestand for the Lady Warriors. Next up is a visit from Kaskaskia (15-10, 7-4) on Saturday. There is a time change for the game, with the tipoff at Spencer pushed back to 3 p.m.