CHICAGO - The Western Illinois women's basketball team overcame a slow first quarter led by Grace Gilmore on a career-high performance in an 88-78 win over Chicago State on Saturday (Dec. 7) afternoon.
"I am disappointed with the way we started," head coach JD Gravina said. "Then you get behind so much, and everything thing becomes difficult, but I am proud of the way we fought back."
After the Cougars opened the game shooting 58 percent to own a 37-27 lead at the end of the first quarter, Gilmore responded with a career-high 19 points to lead the way for the Leathernecks in the first road victory of the season.
"I was really proud of Grace. I thought she came out ready to go and was playing hard. That was big for us since she can be a tough matchup to guard. She does all of the little things right."
Western Illinois earned its first lead (53-52) of the game on a driving layup from Carla Flores at 4:42 in the third quarter overcoming a 15 point deficit. After that, Western never trailed and the guard secured a plus/minus of +19.
The Leathernecks tightened up its defense the rest away and limited the Cougars to nine points in the second and 10 in the third quarter. Elizabeth Lutz, who drilled two threes in the first quarter, passed up another one and kicked it out to Annabel Graettinger for a trey that made it 43-46 to enter half.
Before the buzzer sounded for the third quarter, Graettinger found Grace Gilmore in the corner for a three-pointer, and WIU stretched its lead to double-digits, 67-56.
Outside of Gilmore, three other Leathernecks ended with double-digits in Graettinger (15) and Olivia Kaufmann (16) along with a double-double from Evan Zars (10 pts. 14 reb.)
The purple and gold now have 10 days off before returning to action to host Southeast Missouri Tuesday (Dec. 17), followed by the Compass Challenge at Northern Illinois starting on Thursday (Dec. 19).
