The IU Southeast women’s basketball team improved to an (11-10) overall record, (6-5) in the KIAC, with an impressive win over Brescia University last night. The final was a 97-63 victory over the Bearcats.
The game was never in question, and Grenadiers trailed only briefly in the first half. Brescia University was over-matched as the Grenadiers pulled away in the second half.
IU Southeast was led in scoring by Megan Cureton, junior guard, and Heather Wheat, junior guard. Cureton had a career high 25 points and six rebounds, while Wheat added 20 points, five rebounds and one assist.
“I think we played really well as a team,” Wheat said. “We executed on the offensive end of the floor, and we played really tough defense in the second half.”
Wheat said the team worked hard on defense against the Bearcats.
“We focused on switching screens, blocking out and holding our opponent to one shot per possession,” Wheat said.
Coach Robin Farris said the Grenadiers defense is getting better.
“We gave up 83 points last week, so we talked about playing better defense,” Farris said. “We held them to 24 points at halftime on 24 percent shooting.”
The Grenadiers defensive pressure forced the Bearcats back court to shoot a combined 9-48 from the field.
Brescia was led in scoring by Julie Whitfill with 20 points and 5 rebounds.
While Farris did see some room for improvement, the coach said he was happy with the teams performance.
“One of the areas I am concerned with is our free throw shooting,” Farris said. “We have had four or five close losses this year, and today we only shot 60 percent.”
“We have been working on our free throw shooting in practice,” Wheat said. “I know we didn’t shoot well from the line tonight, but we will continue to work on it and hopefully we will improve.”
As the game began to get out of hand emotions started to run a little hot and Bearcats head coach Summer Quesenberry was assessed a technical foul. The Brescia crowd was loud and voiced their displeasure with the officiating.
Farris said that free throw shooting will be the key to the rest of the season.
“We need to improve there, and if we can get the same effort on defense that we did tonight we can finish the season strong,” Farris said.
