MACOMB, Ill. - The Western Illinois women's basketball team fell to Oral Roberts, 47-37, in Western Hall, ending the nation's longest home-court winning streak at 46 games.Oral Roberts (9-9, 3-4 Mid-Con) jumped out to a 7-0 lead at the 15:37 mark in the first half before a jumper by Samantha Greer broke Western Illinois' (15-3, 7-1 Mid-Con) scoring drought at the 14:59 mark. Another jumper by Zane Teilane with 11:58 to go in the half cut the Golden Eagles' lead to three, 7-4. Oral Roberts went on to outscore Western, 11-7, in the final 11:58 of the half to go into the half, 18-11. Teilane came out of the half to hit a lay-up and a free throw to cut Oral Robert's lead to four, 18-14, but a 8-2 ORU run increased the deficit to 10, 26-16, at the 17:05 mark. Western Illinois outscored Oral Roberts, 18-14, between 15:51 and 1:47 to cut the lead to five, 39-34, but the Golden Eagles used an 8-3 run in the final 1:07 of the game for the 47-37 win.Oral Roberts dominated the boards, outrebounding Western, 30-11. The Golden Eagle also outscored Western, 45.9 (17-37) to 43.8 (14-32) percent from the field.Jenny Hardin led all players with 18 points, while Elisha Turek added 13 points and eigtht rebounds for Oral Roberts.Teilane led Western with 15 points on 5-for-11 shooting from the floor and 5-for-6 from the free throw line, and added six rebounds and one blocked shot. Freshman Sarah Miller scored eight points on 3-for-3 from the floor, and 1-for-1 from the line and beyond the arc.Western Illinois will take on Oakland in Rochester, Mich., Monday, January 30 at 6 p.m. (CST).
Western Illinois Game Notes:- Western's home-court winning streak ends at 46 games. The streak, which began on February 8, 2002, was the longest of any Division I college basketball team in the nation. The last time Western Illinois lost in Western Hall was on January 21, 2002, a 61-57 loss to UMKC.- The loss also ended Western's 10-game winning streak that dated back to December 10 when the squad defeated Saint Louis, 57-44.- Western Illinois was held to a season-low 11 rebounds.
Postgame Quotes:Oral Roberts head coach Jerry Finkbeiner:"We start three freshman and Jenny Hardin played 40 minutes. That's kind of a blessing and curse right now with experience and confidence. We're growing with these freshman and we have a lot of confidence in them and that had a lot to do with today's game. We stuck with a game plan. After our fourth loss, we decided to start over, 0-0, with 10 games left. And we started with Western Illinois, which is probably the toughest game on the schedule. We followed out game plan to the letter."Oral Roberts freshman Jenny Hardin on hitting open shots early:"They are a really good team, but I think we came in focused and ready to play and the shots came."Western Illinois head coach Leslie Crane:"It wasn't the defensive part of anything we did, it was our rebounding and our shooting percentage. Getting outrebouded 30-11, that stat says everything. You're only going to be able to control the tempo if you control the boards, and we didn't."Western Illinois junior Rachel Reed on the way Oral Roberts controlled the tempo of the game:"It was very frustrating because we played good defense and they would get down to five seconds and nail a shot. So it was frustrating, but it was more frustrating on the offensive end because we weren't finishing shots and that made it tough on the defensive end. We had a couple of good runs here and there, but then they would hit a shot and took the wind out of us."