FORT WAYNE, Ind. – The Indiana Tech women's basketball team closed out their regular season with a 65-52 victory over Madonna on Senior Day on Saturday afternoon at the Schaefer Center. The win gives the Warriors 20 on the season and clinches them a first round home game in the Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference (WHAC) Tournament next Thursday.
 
Haley Cook had a game-high 20 points, eight rebounds and three assists while shooting 7-of-18 from the field. Taylor Seiss scored 19 points and hit five three-pointers while playing all 40 minutes. Kendall Knapke recorded her fourth double-double of the season with 10 points and a career-high 16 rebounds while adding three blocks, two steals and two assists. Senior Rayana Villalpando has a solid all-around day on Senior Day, grabbing 11 rebounds while chipping in eight points and six assists. Classmate Taylor Carver added six rebounds while Baylee Rinehart chipped in six points off the bench.
 
Seiss started off the game by scoring the first eight Tech points to get out to an 8-3 lead in the first four minutes of the game. The Crusaders, who had only lost once this calendar year, would battle back to tie the game at 10, but the Warriors would close the quarter with an 18-16 lead.
 
Seiss would open the second period with a three while Knapke followed with one of her own as they stretched their lead to eight. Madonna would respond with a 13-2 run to take the lead at the 2:33 mark, but Rinehart answered with a triple to tie the game at 29 with 1:23 left in the half. The visitors would head into the locker room with a 33-31 lead.
 
The Orange and Black's three point barrage would continue in the second half as the hosts hit five in a row while going on a 20-2 run and take a 52-35 lead with 2:58 left in the third quarter. Seiss would hit three long-distance shots while Cook would hit two from downtown in the stretch.
 
Madonna would not go down lightly though, going on a 13-0 spurt to cut the deficit to 52-48 with 5:57 left in the game. Nine straight points from the Warriors would push the advantage back up to 13 with 3:50 to go, including back-to-back three pointers from Cook as Tech cruised over the last three and a half minutes to avenge an earlier loss to the Crusaders.
 
Tech (20-10, 16-6) finishes in a tie third in the WHAC with Madonna and will have the fourth seed in the upcoming conference tournament (Madonna wins tiebreaker of head-to-head records against Davenport and Lawrence Tech) and will host Cornerstone on Thursday, Feb. 25 at the Schaefer Center. Tipoff is slated for 7 p.m. and links to live stats and video will be available at IndianaTechWarriors.com.